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ABADDON 



SPIRIT OF DESTRUCTION; 



OTHER POEMS. 



J^ 



BY SUMWER L. FAIRFIELD. 



NEW YORK; 

SLEIGHT AND ROBINSON. 

1830. 




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j3 A7 



!:iouthcrn Diairict of ISew York, iis; 

BE IT REMEMBERED, Tliat on the eleventh day of December, in the 
year of our Lord one thousand eig'ht hundred and twenty-nine, in the fifty- 
tburth year of the Independence of the United States of America, Sumner 
L. Fairfield, of the said District, hath deposited in this office, the title of a 
book, the right whereof he claims as Author, in the words following', to wit: 

" Abaddon, the Spirit of Destruction, and other Poems. By Sumner L. 
Fairfield." 

In conformity to the Act of Congress of the United States, entitled, " An 
^ Act for the encouragement of Learning, by securing the copies of Maps. 
Charts, and Books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during tne 
times therein mentioned." And also to an Act, entitled "An Act, supple- 
mentary to an Act, entitled an Act for the encouragement of Learning, by 
securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the authors and proprie- 
tors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned, and extending the 
benefit thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical 
and other prints." 

FRED. J. BETTS, 

Clerk of the Soutliern District of New York. 



THE DEDICATION. 



TO FITZ GREEN HALLECK, Esq., 

As the highest and purest evidence which a poet can 
offer of his admiration of Genius united to purity of 
heart, and great poetic excellence to devoted habits of 
business, with profound respect for virtue and ability, and 
the varied accomplishments of the scholar and the gen- 
tleman, 

This Poem is Dedicated b}^ 

THE AUTHOR. 



THK ARGUMK^T. 



Abaddon or Apollyon, as the name imports, is supposed to be sub- 
ordinate only to Satan, the adversary or tempter, who prepares by 
intrigue and seduction for the terrible triumphs of the Fiend of Ruin. 
The scenes subsequent to the flight of Abaddon have been necessa- 
rily selected for a general illustration of the desolation and agony 
which sin has entailed upon the world ; and the purpose of the au- 
thor has been to exhibit, in the strongest light, the malevolence, the 
ingratitude, and the weakness of men ; their ineptitude to choose 
the highest good ; their bigotted perseverance in confirmed and habi- 
tuated crime ; their insusceptibility, in the midst of desperate vice, 
to permanent impressions of virtue ; and their ill-fated adherence to 
all that demoralizes the heart and degrades the mind. From the 
vast empire of History but few examples could be delineated or even 
named in a poem so brief as this ; but it is trusted that enough have 
been presented to unfold the melancholy truth, that man has too 
often been the dupe of fallacy and the slave of passion, devoted to 
the accomplishment of ambition or opulence — the common vain 
glories of life — though exposed to the penalty of popular execra- 
tion and personal unhappiness. Little relief has been thrown upon 
the picture ; for the purest religion has been for centuries made sub- 
servient, in too many instances, to the perfidious policy of designing 
men, who sullied the purity which opposed their ambition, or annihi- 
lated by ostracism, the scaffold, or the pyre, the enlightened few of 
a darkened sera. 

True piety, averse from contention, and humble in its lofty devo- 
tion, exerts but little influence over the afl[iuent and the worldly. 
The Spirit of Love breathes over the agitated waters, but seldom 
hushes their commotion ; the rainbow of beauty only adorns the 
storm-cloud which it cannot disperse. 



THE SPIRIT OF DESTRUCTION. 



Where the wild darkness of the nether world 
Fell with its ghastliest grandeur, and vast clouds 
Trailed o'er the panting firmament, and himg 
Like sworded ministers of vengjeance low 
Upon the dismal, thick, and deadly air. 
Abaddon stood companionle'ss, and wrapt 
In wasting thought — a pyramid of mind 
On the dark desert of Despair ! Alone 
He stood, and his broad shadow quivered o'er 
The jagged and tumultuary clouds, 
Where living blackness struggled with the glare 
Thrown from the fierce volcano's lava breast, 
With even a deeper gloom ; for moral guilt 
Transcends the tempest's terror and the wreck 
Of warring elements, and brands its curse 
Upon the tortured spirit, from its throne 
Hurled down, and doom'd to agonize and burn. 
Abraded of his glory — shrouded now 
In the dire garments of the accursed race 
Whom Pride, the child of Intellect, o'erthrew, 
Buried in blackness with the muttering slaves 
Of his tremendous treasons — worst of all, 



i»* ABADDON, 

Too proud in desolation's loneliest hour.^ 

To hold communion with interior minds, 

Or, for a moment, bend the archangel's bro\\ 

To baser natures, pale Abaddon leaned 

Against a towering pillar charged with flame, 

And spurned the fierce coiled serpents at his feet 

With calm derision, for he felt within 

Strong anguish past their power. His blasted brow 

Worked in a terrible torture as the throng 

Of horrible remembrances went by, 

And all the majesty of mind unblest 

Glared in the high and haughty scorn that burst 

From his indrawn, remorseless, withering eyes. 

Hurled from the pinnacle- of glory — hurled 
From seraph throne, from love, from heaven and hope, 
The matchless mind, that consummated bliss 
When o'er the crystal fountain of his soul 
Hovered ethereal Purity and smiled, 
Now sealed the utter madness of his doom. 
Memory — the star-eyed child of Paradise ! 
Rushed o'er the burning realm of banished thought. 
Raining her scorpion arrows — Shame, Remorse, 
Vain Penitence and Hatred of himself 
Haunted the ruined altar of his soul. 
And offered up the sacrifice of death, 
That found no mercy and could never die. 
The glacier barriers of his banishment. 
Perdition's shattered rocks, whose awful peaks 
Gleamed in the holiest light of glory lost, 
Closed round his prison-house — his living tomb 



THE SPIRIT OF DESTRUCTIO^. 

Of Still tremendous intellect ; despair 

Followed his steps along his lava path, 

And pride restrained his anguish, though no more 

He watched with the wild agony of hate 

The dayspring or the twilight flight on high 

Of gleaming seraphim, or heard the hymns 

Of cherubs drinking knowledge from the fount 

Of Love and basking in the light of God. 

The thoughts, that cast him from his palmy state, 

The limitless aspirings and desires 

Of an immortal nature, once to him 

The ambrosia and the diadem of bliss, ' 

Came o'er him like the spectres of the past, 

To shriek amid the ruins they had caused. 

And pierce like fire-bolts through his maddened brain. 

He dared, and perished in his power and pride, 

Fell from the hallowed throne of cherished hope 

And sunk to shame — it was enough to know 

And feel as great minds feel their perill'd mighi 

And ruined fame and conscious guilt beyond 

The venal casuistry of proud self-love. 

He would not be Mezentius to himself 

And wed his great ambition to the corse 

Of his dead being ; nor, Procrustes-like, 

Measure departed happiness in heaven 

By present misery in Hades' vault. 

So back upon himself, with dire resolve, 
The voiceless desperation of his doom, 
He deeply shrunk, and reck'd not of the Power 
Forever paramount, nor punishment 

2 



10 ABADDON, 

Doomed to the round of ages ; desolate, 

He cherished not a hope of happier hours, 

Loved not, confided not, but breathed above 

All sympathy and fellowship and fear. 

He poured not tears on thunder-riven rocks, 

Nor sighs upon the burning air that fell 

Like lava on his brain and through his heart 

In livid lightnings wandered; but he grasped 

His garments of eternal flame and wrapt 

Their blaxing folds around his giant limbs, 

And stood with head upraised and meteor eye 

And still lips whose pale, cold and bitter scorn 

Smiled at eternity's deep agonies. 

The Spirit of Destruction undestroyed ! 

Remote from all who fought and fell like him, 

In the lone depths of vast Gehenna's waste, 

And by the lava mountains overhimg 

That darkened e'en the vaulted vapour's gloom, 

He stood in that sick loneliness of soul, 

That awful solitude of greatness lost. 

The Evil, highly gifted, only know. 

When every passion riots on the spoils 

Of knowledge, and the fountain springs of life 

Burst in a burning flood no time can quench. 

But that which agonized his hopeless heart 
And stung him oft to phrenzy — that, which hung 
O'er his all-dreading yet all-daring soul 
Like thousand mountains of perpetual flame, 
Was earthly innocence. Ere then had flown 
The fame of man's creation in a sphere 



THE SPIRIT OF DESTRUCTION. 11 

Fashioned in beauty for his joy and use 
Through the black chambers of the central world : 
And misery, leagued with being's deadliest foes, 
Bhghted Ambition and vain hope of Good, 
Restless Remorse and desolating Shame, 
Pictured the loveliness and love of earth — 
The sunlight hills, to whose immortal thrones 
Morn like a seraph in its glory came ; 
The shadowy valleys, where autumnal airs 
Mid pine and firwoods uttered those sweet hymns 
That sink into the spirit and become 
Oracles of future joy when earth grows dark ; 
The leafy groves, still'd at the fervid noon 
That silence may attend on solemn thought, 
The incense rendered on the sun's vast shrine ; 
The broad and beautiful and glittering streams, 
Where Nature, in her soundless solitudes. 
Smiled grateful back the eternal smile of Hope. 

With the bright hues misfortune gives to joy, 
The outcast angel, in his dungeon gloom 
Girdled and counselled by the false and vahi, 
The wicked without aim save love of change. 
The galley felons of unguerdoned guilt. 
Painted the matchless charms of newborn earth ; 
And, as he imaged forth its blissful scenes, 
His burning, riven, desolated heart 
Groaned till the caverns of remotest hell 
Echoed, and all the envious demons laughed. 
For well he knew that while tlie laws of God 
Were as the breath of life to man, no power 



12 ABADDOA, 

Could loose Destruction's adamantine chains. 
Or shield his haughty spirit from the scoff 
And contumelies low of herding fiends, 
Who drivelled e'en in torment, and could find 
Meet mirth in wilder madness, and misdeemed 
Their crime and agony of less amount 
When mind alone was wanting both to rend 
And still renew the anguish ne'er to close. 

But soon from Eden, o'er the wide void deep. 
Returned the adversary, the master fiend, 
Moulder of fiercest passions — queller, too, 
Of turbulence and vain ferocity. 
Whose serpent wisdom nourished matchless pride, 
Whose hope was ruin and whose counsel, death. 
In guile without a peer ; on holy works 
And customary rites attendant e'er 
As come their seasons,- with a zealot's speech 
Prolonged and trumpetted that pours and pours 
Like turbid waters by the tempest hurled. 
He holds devoted natures with the grasp 
Of death, and 'neath the pictured mask of g^ftefe 
Hides the atrocity and doom of hell. 
Opinion, fount of action, falsely held. 
Founds and confirms his empire ; fallacies. 
With master skill and magic, he distorts 
And beautifies with the fair robes of faith ; 
The martyr's sacrifice — the patriot's doom — 
The just man's dungeon hours — the last despnir 
Of virtue, and proud honour'^ agony. 
To him are mirth and music ; and he feasts, 



THE .SPIRIT OF DES'J'RUCTION. 13 

With hecatombs of victims offered up 
Upon the idol shrine of evil here, 
His own eternal anguish and remorse. 
The rushing of his dragon wings, like storms 
In mountain gorges, shook the conscious air, 
And rapture sounded in their vast quick sweep 
Along the dim confines and swirling gulf 
Of chaos ! Crowded round the cloudj' throne 
Of Pandaemonium all the rebel horde. 
And rapidly, with haughty gesture, passed 
Abaddon to his place, the loftiest there 
Save one, and terribly his glowing eyes 
Watched and awaited the descending chief. 

As in the prophet's vision by the brinli 
or Ulai's orient wave, the victor foe 
Touched not the earth in haughtiness of power, 
But, ere confronting, conquered in the spoil ; 
So rushed the giant prince of darkness now 
On condor pinions, with hyaena eye, 
And broad brow in the storm-cloud deeply wrapt, 
In his career exultant that despair 
And death from birth to burial should infect 
Man's heart pulse, paralyze his spirit's power, 
Seal all his human hopes with vanity, 
Burden all pleasure with besetting fear, 
Wed honour to disgrace and pride to shame, 
Bring widowhood in youth, and friendless leave 
Unportioned orphanage in evil days. 
And change each quickened breath to sobs and sighs. 
And o'er all scenes of love and rapture cast 



14 ABADDON, 

The gloom of peril, hopelessness and want, 
That trails and languishes yet fears to end. 

Crowned with a volcan glory, came the fiend, 
Trembling amid his triumph lest the wrath 
Of fiercer retribution should pursue 
His victory, and o'er his deathless fate 
Hang with unutterable revenge that grasps 
Eternities of misery, though he felt 
Awful capacities, transcendant powers, 
Knowledge of good and evil past the scope 
Of all created minds, and strength of will 
Matched only by his restless agony. 
On — on he rushed, like that dread vision borne 
O'er Gilboa's midnight hills when shield and speai- 
Shiver' d and regal crown and sceptre rolled 
Down desolate ravines — resolved to bear 
All evil worst imagined with a soul 
Of quenchless majesty, till o'er all space 
Annihilation reigned by chaos' side. 
So, fanning the black gulf of flame amid 
The horrible profound, his cloud-like wings 
Furled at the flaming footstool of his throne. 

" Triumph, Dominions !" loud the arch-daemon cried. 
His eyeballs flashing round ; " The Son of Heaven 
" Hath fallen as we fell ! Ye Legions ! Lift 
" Your voices till the rifted concave shrieks, 
" For I have vanquished His pecuhar work I 
" We lost our birthright for Ambition's wreath 
' Of martyrdom, and for ourselves alone 



THE SPIRIT OF DESTRUCTION. 15 

" We bleed and burn ; but these weak beings sought 

" Evil for evil's sake — knew not, forewarned, 

" That knowledge is the crown of destinies, 

" And thought not that one crime in them must breed 

" Myriads of myriads, and perpetuate 

" Misery and madness till unnumbered years 

" Have wafted hosts on hosts to one abyss 

" And earth no more can sepulchre the dead. 

" Who shall arraign the Tempter ? faith, untried, 

" May be but falsehood ; innocence becomes 

" Virtue but in victorious trial ; proved 

" In his pi'oud conquest o'er deceit and guile, 

" Man has been worthy of his Maker's trust, 

" But, disobedient to well known commands, 

" He stands disrobed, unfolding what he is. 

" The Almighty held denial in his power 

" Of the permission to attest his work, 

" But used it not ; he might have crowned the man 

" With perspicacity and strength beyond 

" The daring of the bravest ; but he left 

" His creature to the workings of his will, 

" The illusions of his uncontrolled desires, 

" Though oft premonished ; so, at once he fell 

" And reaped the recompense, and where' s the guilt f 

" Not mine, but his who saw yet boldly sinn'd !" 

While Satan thus harangued his rebel band, 

Mounted in pyramids the lurid flames 

On the black mountains and the vales of hell, 

And loud the concentrated shouts went o'er 

The radiant battlements of heaven, where stood 

Seraph and cherub on their missioned charge. 



It) ABADDOiN, 

Scarce ceased the wild acclaim, ere swiftly rose 
Abaddon and down dropped his chains ; the blaze 
Of battle burst along his broad high brow, 
Its thunder from his voice ; he stamped his foot, 
And hell recoiled ; he turned his scorching eyes 
Upon the gathered fiends, and all fell back, 
Save Moloch, with a shudder felt through all 
The realm of darkness ; but a withering smile 
Quivered o'er Satan's dreadful countenance 
To witness thus his victory ; his thoughts 
Sprung on eternity's vast shadowy wings, 
And down the viewless future madly rushed, 
With the uproar of ocean breaking through 
The crashing mountain barriers of the earth. 
Conquered and manacled, but unsubdued, 
Despairing, yet devoted to his ci'ime. 
He grasped at all fantastic shapes — all shades 
Of stalwart phantoms, gaunt, and grim, and huge, 
And moulded them to giant foes of God. 
Though in his Titan heart the poison stirr'd, 
Thrilled through each vein, and every iron nerve 
Convulsed, and mounted to his burning brain 
In boiling eddies, yet his scornful lip 
Still pressed the chalice of a vain revenge. 
He started from his vision as the fiend 
Of Ruin, dark Abaddon shook his plumes, 
Broad as the tempest's banner, on the air, 
And, roaring like the famished lion round 
The wastes of Tadmor or Ipsamboul, cried — 
" My time hath come ! no more in this black den 
" Of sloth, and desolation, and despair, 



THE SPIRIT OF DESf RUCTION. 17 

*' Slumbers the Spirit of Destruction ! Sin 

'' Invokes her bridegroom Ruin ! Earth and Timt' 

" Already shudder, conscious of my tread. 

" We meet no more save on our embassies 

'' Of woe and terror till our prince achieves 

'' His glutted vengeance ; but in many a land 

" Ye shall be gods to nations, who shall fall 

" Before your shrines and sacrifice their blood 

'" In rites the stars shall mark with pale affright, 

" Mysteries and sorceries and magic charms, 

" To win the endless torment of our hell ! 

" My spirit feels the knowledge — fallen man 

" Will dare beyond the damned — sink his soul 

" In vengeance and corruption — bare his arm 

" Against the heavens that bless him, and exceed^ 

'* Once taught, e'en my capacity of hate. 

" Therefore, exult ! exult ! and fare ye well !" 

He said ; and momently his pinions shook 

Their first quick curses o'er the quivering void ! 

The Spirit of Celestial Love, that stood 
Beside the throne of mercy, breathing bliss 
Through each ethereal bosom, inly felt 
By that mysterious mind, which guides all thought 
And unwilled feeling and directs all deeds. 
The flight of evil and the daemon's power : 
And, silently commissioned by that mode 
Ineffable and yet well known in heaven, 
By which the electric will of Deity 
Pervades all spirits as light gleams tlfrough the eye. 
The Angel of Benevolence arose 

3 



1 B ABAl>i>Ui\, 

And passed from peace and praise to wrath and hate. 

From perfect bliss to doubt and care and sti'ife, 

From heaven's own glory to the gloom of earth. 

But great the guerdon and the final crown, 

A living and perpetual fount of joy, 

By human pride unsullied, by the lips 

Of guilt untouched, shrined in the unchanging skies. 

— Thou soul of music in a world of hate ! 

Thou beautiful and holy spring of love 

And mildness by the bland and blessed voice 

Of martyrs and apostles gently called 

Charity, that hides unreckoned sins. 

O'er troubled earth thou breathest balmy peace^ 

Hushing disquiet with a whisper heard 

Like greenwood hymns at eve-; and men, unawed 

By storm and earthquake, to thy soft low voice 

Listen like convicts to unhoped reprieve. 

Immortal love ! though generations glide 

In shadowy armies to the spirit-land, 

And kingdoms perish, and their glories fade 

In fabled legends, and untravelled seas 

Lament o'er buried cities, still thy youth, 

Thy brightness and thy beauty glow the same. 

In living hearts thine empire changes not. 

And from the vale of sepulchres thy smile 

Wafts spirits purifled to glory's home ! — 

— Forth went the angel to his trial, meek 

In power, by soft allurements to o'ercome 

The savage wrath of men, and thwart the aim 

Of the remorseless fiend loosed on his prey. 



THE SPIRIT OF DESTRUCTION. 19 

Time with the silent speed of light passed o'er 

Eden's poor wandering exiles, and the gush 

Of their first anguish and remorse and woe, 

Beneath the hallowed influence of love, 

Daily endearment and affections linked, 

And blended destinies and humbled thoughts, 

Faded to an endurance and a hope 

That breathed like zephyr o'er them ; and they dre^v 

From nature and her eloquence of bloom, 

Her moonlight music and her starry hymn, 

Her still green places of repose, her crowned 

And glorious mountains, where the bannered trees 

Agamst the sunset sky like angels stood 

And waved the way to heaven — they daily drew 

A blessing on their toil — a sacred charm 

For loneliness that fell not on the heart, 

Meek quiet filled with stilly dreams of days 

Unborn — and lifted up in thankfulness — 

And faith that linked them to immortal life 

With Him, the Christ, redeeming what he judged. 

So in each others' weal and in the love 
Of children smiling on a wondrous world, 
And, like the lonicera round the palm, 
Climbing about their bosoms while the flowers 
Of young mind perfumed all the enchanted air. 
They found their solace; and winged pleasure sung 
Around their rest, undreading future ill. 
Years brought their fruits and flocks, and Abel's voice 
Cheerily went up on morning airs, and swelled 
In that sweet living melody of heart 



20 ABADDON, 

Pure thoughts mspire at hallowed eventide. 
His home was on the hills, his altar there ; 
His sceptre was his crook, his soul his throne, 
Peace was his realm, his God was everywhere. 

Cain tilled the earth, a stern and wayward man, 
Cursing the curse of toil and barrenness. 
Though plenty clothed the hillside and the vale 
With golden beauty, and his generous herds 
Reposed, full banquetted, on broad green meads. 
He recked not of the gentleness of love, 
Calm virtue and submitted pride and thoughts 
Exalted o'er all evil, from the dross 
Of earth refined and fitted for their home. 
But great ambition panted for renown 
And monuments and temples and a fame 
Immortal as the skies that watched his soul. 
Tradition, uttered by the voice of grief, 
Had told the pomp of hierarchies throned 
And sceptred seraphim, and Cain's vain heart 
Burn'd for their princedoms and their potencies. 
So evil grew, and daily to his task 
He bore a darker spirit ; envy cast 
Midnight o'er happiness not left for him, 
And hatred tracked the shepherd to the hills. 
There are two altars on a lonely mount 
Since named the Throne of Elbours, mid the land 
Of Iran, clothing its dark brow in clouds. 
While thunder voices down each shattered gorge, 
Ravine of rocks and dreary shagged glen 
Mutter and moan, and in the fiery depth 



THE SPIRIT OP DESTRUCTION. 21 

The dread volcano startles into wrath. 

Beside each shrine stand two majestic forms, 

Beautiful in early manhood, girt with strength 

As with a robe of steel, whose thousand chains 

Sleep 'neath the silken draperies and plumes 

And broideied cloth of gold of courtier pomp. 

Yet in their orisons and deeds unlike, 

Their thoughts and sacrifice, a spotless lamb 

Divided lay on Abel's shrine; the fruit 

Of earth, the haughty offering of a heart 

That bade the Deity accept the form 

Of worship, and give back the meed deserved, 

Fell from the hand of pride upon the wood 

Of Cain heaped on steep rocks in shapeless piles. 

The shepherd's prayer in stillness mounts to God, 

And fire descends and curls in lambent wreaths 

O'er faith's oblation and adoring love. 

But darkly broods the storm of heavenly wrath 

O'er the unholy sacrifice of guilt; 

Naked before the eye of judgment stands, 

Benetted with hypocrisies and crimes, 

The fierce conspirator, whom evil thoughts 

Clothe as a garment ; and he turns aside 

From the heart-withering glance aghast with shame, 

Yet desecrated to revenge in blood. 

Lowered the flushed brow of Cain — his visage fell, 

And through the darkened avenues of sin 

The Fiend of Ruin to his bosom stole 

And stirred the livid flame : " Thy Maker sconis 

" Thee and thy service and he hath respect 

" Alone for slaves who prostrate do his will. 



22 ABADDON, 

" Thy vassal brother wins the praise of God 

" By austere life and a feigned awe of heaven, 

" While thou, the victim, though thou hast the power 

" Of victor, waitest on his sanctity, 

'* And, with a forced repentance, standest b}^ 

" To breathe the accepted incense of thy foe ! 

" Earth, sea and hell cry vengeance — be avenged !" 

Cain listened and obeyed — his weapon fell — 

Death started from the gory ground and gazed 

With haggard horror on his father fiend, 

And fled, the trembling vanquisher ! All heaven 

In awful stillness heard the martyr's groan, 

The cherubim amid their worship paused, 

And even the viewless throne of God was veiled 

In sevenfold darkness ! — silence hushed her heart ! 

Cursed with a deathless agony — the seal 
Of terror on his brow, the fire of death 
Coiling around his spirit, to man's scorn 
And desolation and despair marked out, 
Creating solitude where'er he comes, 
Shunned by the death he summoned from the sod, 
And left a breathing sepulchre amid 
The mirth of nuptials and the feast of birth, 
Departs the Fratricide ; and with him haste 
To the lone wilds of Elam, land of Nod, 
Belial and Moloch, grovelling chiefs of hell. 

Hast thou beheld the Persecutor gloat 
O'er banished virtue, outcast guiltlessness? 
Hast thou beheld him following Want's slow tread 



THE SPIRIT OF DESTRUCTION. 23 

To poison every little stream of life ? 

Oh, hast thou heard him whisper chill distrust 

And viper caution into friendship's ear, 

And seen the electric change — the altered eye, 

The hand withdrawn — the petrified repulse — 

While voiceless Innocence retired and wept ? 

Hast thou seen hatred wear the guise of grace, 

And robe revenge in the fair garb of heaven ? 

Before me rises the inquisitor. 

With meek hands folded on his breast — bowed head, 

And downcast eyes, and noiseless, gliding step, 

Proudly exulting in the awarded praise 

Of mild humiUty and zeal chastised 

By holy ruth that weeps the doom it speaks ; 

While rancour revels in his bigot heart, 

And chain and faggot — woe and lingering death 

Rejoice his spirit more than temple hymns. 

Thus to his spoil went forth the dreadful Fiend, 

(And he hath many a slam even now on earth) 

To gather in the harvest of his hate. 

Crime came to consummation when the sons 
Of heaven reviled the image of their King, 
Wedded idolatries and nameless rites. 
Debased their nature in the dust and sealed 
Lovebonds with the accursed race of Cain. 
Hence miscreations came — the giant kings 
Of old, and monsters, hideous birth of sin, 
Phoenicia's Anakim — Titanic chiefs, 
Centaurs and Lapithae, vampires and gnomes, 
Malign and elvish dwarfs whom dregs suffice, 



24 ABADDOiN, 

Save that they, serpent-like, will lick the dust — 
Briareus, Polyphemus and their peers, 
Nature's abhorrence and derision, sent 
To riot in all wrong and waste and woe. 
Bright, young and beautiful, the world o'erflowed 
With shame that hath no voice in better days, 
And mercy, wearied with perpetual guilt, 
Lifted her prayer no more, and justice cried 
" God's spirit shall not always strive with man !" 

The years of long forbearance slowly fled, 
The vision of the prophet from all eyes 
Vanished like sunrise vapours, and the words 
Of wisdom echoed like a dying voice 
In Sinai's wilderness ; no spirit bowed. 
No heart relented at the coming wrath. 
Revel that brought no joy, and shrill-voiced mirth 
Most melancholy poured their madness out, 
And lozels wantonn'd o'er the poisoned bowl, 
And blasphemy embraced the shape of death, 
Howling hoarse curses, and all forms of sin, 
All gross imaginations of desire, 
All vampyre appetites and goule-like lusts 
Trampled and triumphed o'er the laws of God. 

The pictured cloud conceals the wildest storm, 
The earthquake leaps from slumber into rage, 
And guilt, most safe, is nearest to despair. 
All bosoms had been gored by man's excess, 
And all thoughts coined and coffered up to pile 
The matchless monument of evil deeds. 



THE SPIRIT OF DESTRUCTlOlX . 25 

Poesy, the bride of beauty and the child 
Of Purity, immortal in the skies, 
Soiled by the atheist and the ribald, lost 
The brightness of her birthright, the blest charm 
Of her ecstatic being that hung round 
Her sylphic form in rainbow robes of light, 
And fell before the altar of the Fiend. 
Struck by the pestilence that roamed each track 
Of daily life, the Good in forests dim 
Or Al-Gezira's loneliest caverns dwelt, 
Pale famished anchorets, and hoary hairs 
Waved in the winter-winds of Oman's sea. 
These few ; the undreaded Future's destinies. 
Rival not present policy — the scope 
Of proud example, and expediency, 
That sullies more than less occult offence. 
Hoar heads alone rever'd celestial laws ; 
Exuberant youth, in confidence of time, 
Held the late banquet, seeking pleasure's meed 
Among the bowers of pain ; and Jubal's lyre. 
Hung on the willow, harped in desert winds. 
To crown the cup of vengeance and to bar 
All hope forever, sons of Belial poured 
On Noah's heart the gall of base report 
And pointed at him with a scoff and jeer, 
And drave him from their dwellings with reproach. 
Then came the herald of the heavens and closed. 
With awful words, the prophet's mission there ; 
And, hovering o'er his victims in the pride 
Of power, Abaddon listened to the roar 
Of coming Ruin as the war-steed drinks 

4 



^t> ABADDOi\, 

At morn the music of the noon-tide strife. 

Lingering hke hopeless love around the form 
Of its young worship, slowly on the verge 
Of the bine firmament a bannered cloud 
O'er Taurus rose and rested in the air. 
Upon its folds deep darkness hung and oft 
Quick shooting gleams of lurid fire withdrew . 
For momentary glances of mad fear, 
The vast dark curtain of God's mysteries. 
Then up t'was lifted o'er the lovely vault 
Broader and blacker, and the thunder's voice 
O'er Caucasus and Shinar's evil realm 
Rushed, like the archangel's trumpet blast of doom, 
Crying " Repent while judgment waits your prayers !" 
But silence answered, and ascended higher 
The tempest in tremendous masses swept 
Like dust before the samiel. On the peak, 
The utmost pinnacle of those vast clouds, 
Grasping the arrowy bolts that round his brows 
Hung like a crown, and glaring down on earth 
With eyes of basilisk that drank the blood. 
The Appearance of a giant shape appeared ; 
And, as the priest and prophet sadly paused 
To gaze and weep, he raised his swimming eyes 
To watch the moment when the door must close 
And hope expire ; and, like a swirhng bark 
In Norway's Maelstrom, sank his awe-struck heart — 
For he beheld Abaddon, calling up 
All wandering vapours from the shoreless Deep, 
Guiding the hurricane and hurrying on 



THE SPIRIT OF DESTRUCTION. 27 

The dread reluctant ruin, and he heard 

The laugh of hell beneath the stars of heaven. 

Up to the zenith heaved the o'erfraught clouds 
And hung — then fell, dread billows of the sky — 
tJpon the far horizon. Through the depths 
Of the tumultuous welkin flew the flames 
Like fiery scorpions ; east to west replied : 
Pole shrieked to pole ; the brazen atmosphere 
Grew ghastly mid conflicting lights and shades. 
And quivered till the eyeballs blurred and reeled. 
And peril and dismay and fainting fear 
And terror and confusion and despair 
Entered, like siegers furious for the spoil, 
The abodes of the deserted, while the floods 
Fell, like Araxes from Armenian hills. 
Or thousand torrents from Cordillera' brow, 
Down — down upon the drenched and gasping eartli. 
The apostates at their feast in songs obscene 
Mocked Noah and his storm-ship, shouting " Lo ! 
" The madness of the hypocrite ! his beams 
" Of gopher to the cruel seas will tell 
'' A tale of wreck, and all his crowded beasts 
"Will roar the lawless ocean into peace. 
" Fill round and drink for wisdom — the red wine 
" Mantles with pure philosophy — old Cain 
" Commends its cheering in the chilly night !" 
So talked the infidels ; but morn replied ! 

They slept the sleep of wassail ; but, ere stars 
Faded behind the universe of clouds, 



^S ABADDON, 

All woke in the wild terror of the Bad. 

The solid battling sides poured deluge down, 

Typhon poured out earth's dirge from heavens of wrath, 

The forests shook and heaved and tossed and creaked, 

The waters through their dwellings dashed and moaned. 

The herds sent up a piteous cry — the flocks 

Were hurried o'er the illimitable waste 

Of countless torrents and the desert beasts 

Mingled their yells with the last wail of men. 

Day broke and in the gray and quivering gloom. 
The dull, cold twilight of the cheerless morn, 
All eyes beheld on waters bubbling up 
From every fountain of the yawning earth, 
And pouring from each livid mass above, 
The Cypress Ark, the home of truth and love, 
The just man's sanctuary ; and with shrieks, 
And supplications and despairing tears, 
Ten thousand voices blended in one prayer — 
" Receive us ! save us from devouring deeps ! 
" Receive us ! save us from the tempest's rage ! 
" Receive us ! save us from the wrath of God !" 
But on o'er surging seas and broken waves 
Floated the Ark — the eternal door was shut. 

The shuddering waters gathered, and the cries 
Of utter, hopeless, helpless agony 
Rose o'er the crash and howl of elements 
Convulsed and quivering in each other's wrath. 
Vain were uplifted arms and faces wrought 
To anguish ; vain, the hoarse and strangled voice 



THE SPlllIT OF DESTRUCTION. 20 

Of sinking feebleness ; and vain the shrieks 

Of beauty, erst the wonder and delight 

Of human passion, while the torrents swelled, 

And quick through shattered billows glanced pale brows. 

Closed eyes and raven hair, amid the foam. 

Like countless apparitions round the couch 

Of fever, hovering for a moment's lapse, 

Then vanishing far down the unfathomed Deep. 

Down came the Deluge. Kuma's lonely vale 
Beneath far stretching Caucasus no more 
Glowed in its beauty like a virgin bride 
Unclosing the barr'd vizor of her lord. 
The bright and glorious hills above the flood 
Looked forth and vanished, while the victims clung 
To the drown' d clifls and topmost trees and gasped 
Their last quenched shriek for succour ; every pulse 
Ceased in the turbid waters — every head 
Sank on its cold, dark pillow — all was still ! 
One moment's struggle — and the silence fell ; 
One awful pang — and Death swept o'er the sea 
And found no sacrifice! Then hoary C\IN, 
Whom multitude of years, baptized in guilt, 
And branded with impieties, had brought 
To this dread expiation, 'mid his sons, 
His nation of idolaters, o'erwhelmed 
By the resistless billows, proudly fell 
In sullen haughty silence and cold scorn 
And unrepentant pride ; and his last breath 
Quivered with voiceless curses as he swirled 
Along the surf and vanished in the gulf. 



,J0 ABADDON, 

Then with a music like the battle dirge 
From midnight mountains sent in waves of sound 
O'er forest and dark dell and starless vale, 
Abaddon whirr'd along the dreadful waste. 
Loud cried he in his glory : " Triumph yet ! 
" Sin loves her bridegroom Ruin! loyal Death 
" Obeys his monarch and the world is mine !" 
Creation groaned ; the universe throughout 
Infinity with sudden terror quaked, 
Then came a Voice : " Thou dost what GoD permits, 
" Apostate, reprobated slave of crime ! 
" The author, punisher and victim too 
" Of lecusant and unforgiven guilt ! 
" Vaunt not, with fond ovation, evil done 
" By heaven's allowance, lest thy doom should be 
" To invent fresh torture for thy fellow fiends !" 
The Daemon quailed ; yet soon above the Ark 
Hovered on giant pinions, looking down 
With vulture eyes unsated by despair. 
The mountains trembled in the vast abyss. 
The Hazaldera to their centre shook, 
Hyrcania's sea forgot its ancient bounds, 
Wandering o'er precipice and wood and wild. 
And ocean's viewless monsters o'er their tops 
And in their awful caverns rolled their vast 
Unwieldy forms and played their giant game. 

Meantime, the floating temple wandered on ; 
And in the bosom of the house of God 
Rested the child of heaven ; and praise and prayer. 
Chastened affection, gentle gratitude, 



THE SPIRIT OF DESTRUCTION. SI 

Serene devotedness and fearless trust 

Worshipped in every pure though saddened heart. 

Peace as in Paradise reigned sole ; the asp 

And viper coiled beside the infant's couch, 

Lion and elephant and cougar fed 

With lamb, gazelle and antelope ; the breath 

Of wolverines and leopards stirr'd the fur 

Of slumbering creatures once their hate and spoil. 

For there the Angel of Celestial Love 

Abode as afterward above the seat 

Of mercy and between the cherubim, 

To commune with the spirit that had dared 

The scorner's blasphemy, the earth-fiend's assault, 

The hatred and contempt of men, and soared 

Beyond the scope of evil — and to teach 

His faith by prophecies of future good, 

And glory and dominion ; how that vice 

Should minister to virtue and guilt change 

Its nature and be fashioned into good, 

And all conspiracies of men and fiends 

But consummate the last great praise of heaven. 

So counsell'd and consoled when hung the Ark 

On Ararat, and no more the dove came back, 

Forth went the Patriarch to his own wide world. 

When the clear rivers had resumed their banks, 
And vivid verdure gladdened o'er the plain. 
And every tenant of the storm-ship, robed 
Again in its peculiar nature, had gone forth 
To breathe the living air of mountain haunts 
A.nd graze upon the vale of fountains bright 



32 ABADDOIN, 

With moon and sunlight and the stars' soft smiles, 

The rainbow revelation of the skies 

O'er wood and mountain glowed with hues of heaven, 

And on the altar of man's sacrifice 

Appeared the missioned Angel ; " Never more, 

" Saith God, shall Deluge drown die earth ; no more, 

(( 'pjij Time expires, shall dewy seedtime fail 

" Or cheerful harvest ; cold and heat shall track 

" Each other's footsteps in the round of years, 

" And birth and death to nations shall succeed 

" As nature dictates." Upward soared the voice. 

Revered in reverend age, for all his deeds, 
Were chronicled in Honour's living scroll 
And with remembrances most sacred charged — 
Beloved in his last hour — the deeper then — 
For countless hearts had garnered up his thoughts, 
His counsels, his examples, faith and love — 
The Patriarch (by the sage of thousand years 
Named Noah, consolation for the curse) 
Summoned around his deathbed from afar, 
Cathay, fair Al-Gezira and the isles 
Sinte titled of the Gentiles, and the shores 
Of Oman's sea and the broad realms that clasp 
Those waters trusted in all times with wealth 
Of argosies and galleons and triremes,. 
Laden by Egypt, Sidon, Tyre and Moors 
Of Afric and proud lords of Christendom — 
These called he — sons yet chiefs and kings — 
Before his presence ere the soul grew dim, 
Pour'd in their waiting minds dread prophecies, 



TliE aPlKlT OF UESTRUCTION. 33 

And histories of mutable though prospered life, 
And then gave up to his Preserver God 
His spirit, tried and purified by time. 
In latter ages he, who wanders down 
Euphrates' banks, may see nomades stand 
Beside an ivied moss-grown monument 
Mid ancient woods, and hear the watchers say 
" Behold Dair Ahiinah — the temple-tomb 
" Of him who saw the world expire and lived." 

Once more the earth was peopled, and the land 
Portioned among the children of the just. 
The branching olive in the valley grew, 
The vintage on the hillside blushed, and grain 
Waved its green glories o'er rejoicing fields. 
But men forgot their blessings and despised 
Their birthright, and the standard of their king 
Deserted in the faithlessness of sin, 
Deeming their own vain workmanship could build 
Castles impregnable, towers proudly crown'd 
By the blue heavens, secure from future wreck. 
Thus tempted he, Abaddon, for he knew 
That doubt brings terror — fear of boundless power 
Avoidance of communion and concern 
And final hate ; and to this scope he swayed 
The fickle mind of youth, with dread of ill 
Blending sublime and thrilling phantasies 
Of honour, greatness, affluence, and fame. 
Hence rose corrupt condemners — judges throned 
In bought authority and base insolence, 
Accusers, yet dispensers of men's doom. 

5 



Hence tyrants rose, who trampled on quick hearts. 
And drank the shrieks and agonies of earth. 
Hence envy sprung, armed at its birth with stings 
Of scorpions, and revenge from midnight gloom 
Leapt on its victim with uplifted hand. 
But craftsmen skill' d like Sinon in old time, 
Who offered ruin upon Ilium's shrine. 
Or Clazomenian Artemon, who wrought 
The fierce balista, or Daedalus fara'd, 
Rival not wisely Him, whose moment's thought 
Created myriad systems, stars and suns. 
Each artizan on Babel sudden heard 
Mysterious voices from familiar lips, 
Unknown behests from architects wellknown, 
And each misdeemed the other mad or seized 
With fiend, possession. Anger, wrath, distrust 
Threw gloom on every stricken countenance, 
And sundered the assemblage and dispersed 
O'er. undiscovered realms and regions wild. 
Forest and seashore, mountain, dale, and plain, 
Proud men and builders vain, who left behind 
The monument of folly to proclaim 
The nothingness of man's magnificence. 

In earlier years, unvisited as yet, 
Though fraught with many evils, by the rage 
Of worst assassins, in my solitude 
I sung the vengeance and the recompense 
Of guilt that wrecked the Cities of the Plain ; 
And, earlier still, the triumph on the waste 
Of Israel o'er the banded host and pride 



THE SPIRIT OF DESTRUCTIOIS. 

Of Egypt long renowned for arts and arms. 
And now, thou beautiful imperson'd Thought I 
Queen of the blest Camoenae ! Dweller lone 
On promofitories high, by pebbly spring, 
Clear as thy soul and mirror' d like thy heart, 
Here stay thy flight ; thou canst not follow death 
Through all its triumphs in all time, nor paint 
The Ogemon as he swiftly sweeps the world, 
Rushing from woe to woe, and bearing high 
His carnage front, crown'd with its wreath of flame. 
But thou canst picture such disastrous deeds 
As leave their deadliest wounds iu Hfe, and so 
Ofier upon thy country's shrine thy lay. 
Guide now my flying song through awful scenes 
That darken the soul's sunlight, and let not 
Thy deep moralities and lessons' stern 
Be wanting to instruct the soul of man 
That wisdom dwells with cloistered gentleness, 
And greatness with a conquest o'er desire, 
And fame with justice and with duty, peace ! 

Remorseless avarice and serpent guile ; 

The ravine and the rapine of men loos'd 

By legal sanction on each other's weal ; 

Accursed usury and trade that seared 

The generous spirit of benignant youth ; 

Feud, faction, rivalry in court and camp, 

In nuptial pomp and gaudy obsequies, 

And daily intercourse ; pale jealousy. 

Blighting the mildewed heart and forging wrongs 

To consummate suspicion : envy, hate, 



.iG ABADDOiN, 

Howling defiance or disguised to kill ; 

All desolating slander, whispered out 

In night assemblies, and ere noontide hurled 

O'er the wide town to feast upon the slain ; 

These and unnumbered terrors more were born 

When cities rose and thronged societies 

DraA-e sleeping passion into ruthless war. 

Nor Sheikh nor Ephori nor Archon throned 
In Areopagus, nor Consul stem 
In curule chair, nor chief nor king nor czar, 
Could ever crush the giant crimes of men, 
Or hold, when maddened by indignities, 
Their bandit natures subject to his law. 
All codes and pandects and enactments framed 
By skill'd and titled senates cannot bind 
Man to his fellow's weal, nor countermine 
The quick evasions of a mind resolved 
To build on human heads its dome of gold. 
Custom creates desire, and want uplifts 
Its voice and yearns for common vanities ; 
And folly, minister to pride, hath had 
Its bribe in every age and clime and heart ; 
And interest coins new gold from sack and spoil 
To bear the gorgeous pageant bravely on. 
So luxury dissolves the strength of men. 
And poverty degrades the eagle thought ; 
And faith deserts all commerce and all speech. 
Then tyrants trample ; but the same dark fiend, 
That covered tliem with purple, yet hath slaves 
More terrible than this : and rebels crouch 



THE SPIRIT OF DESTRUCTION. .37 

Around the throne to cleave one despot's brain, 
And seat another on their vassal necks. 
Thus doubt, intrigue, cabal and mutual hate. 
The monstrous birth and bane of social life, 
Bear retribution to the lips of all. 

All history is but a scroll of blood. 
The record of destruction and despair ; 
The life of man hath parted from each sod 
Where spreads a kingdom, and the voice of woe 
Uttered its wailings round triumphal cars, 
And purple pomp and unrestricted power, 
' Since first the astonished sun beheld the sin 
And shuddering horror of Earth's fallen sire. 
Ixion's wheel, the rock of Sisyphus, 
The Danaides' hopeless, endless toil, 
But image to our wiser sense of fate 
The misery and the madness that have crowned 
Lust and ambition since the cherub's sword 
Gleamed o'er the closed gate of lost paradise. 

Lo! glorious Babylon — the gorgeous queen, 
The lady of earth's kingdoms ! beauty, strength, 
Dominion, glory, and magnificence 
Gleamed in her diadem, and nations quailed 
Before the rushing squadrons of her kings. 
Towers, castles, palaces and guarded walls. 
That shadowed the sheen dayspring ; — colonnades, 
Whose porphyry pillars glowed with crowns of gems, 
And glittering marts of merchant princes meet 
To purchase monarchies ; — and temples wreathed 



38 ABADDON, 

With gold and diamonds, through rosy airs 

Soaring to heaven ; — and from vast terraces 

Gardens, Hke Eden's in its hours of bUss, 

Gemm'd with the matchless flowers of all the east, 

And shaded by the cedar, laurel, palm 

And grovelike banyan, hanging from the walls — 

All these defended and adorned her pride, 

Her boasted immortality of power, 

And captive monarchs laid their sceptres down 

Beneath her footstool, while her king of kings, 

Nabocolasser deigned to bid them serve. 

Girded by battlements that mocked assault, 

And beautified by every art of man, 

Her bands invincible o'erspread the earth, 

And garnered up in her proud palaces 

The majesty and pomp of prostrate thrones. 

But strength, on odours pillowed, faints and dies, 

And glory brooks not love's voluptuous ease. 

Fame sculptures its own throne and monument, 

O'er perishable existencies and things 

Doomed to decay it pours its deathless soul, 

And in the realms of thought forever reigns. 

But from the hidden urns of gold and gems 

The spirit of magnificence enshrined 

In darkness, from temptation's weak research, 

The destined king, whom vice emasculates. 

Bears to his banquet poison and despair ! 

Nimrod and Ninus and Semiramis 

Gazed from the icy pinnacle subUme 

Of restless action and unslumbering toil 

On broken dynasties and conquered crowns ; 



THE SPIRIT OF DESTRUCTION. 39 

With wine and courtezans and sycophants 
Belshazzar revell'd till the spectre hand 
Wrote ruin on the radiant tapestries, 
And ivory pillars of his banquet hall, 
And Mede and Persian up Euphrates' bed 
Rushed to the throne that held no more a king. 

The solitary Syrian pilgrim roams 
Through Hellah's dismal hamlet and discerns. 
He deems, from hot and drifted sand exhumed. 
Relics of Babylon — ^yet doubts his quest, 
And searches more intently, while the wind 
Moans o'er the desert with a broken voice. 
And bats and bitterns hover, and the fox 
Springs from his burrow, and the jackal's scream 
Haunts the lone air throughout the livelong night. 
This is ambition's triumph ! this the crown 
And consummation of earth's monarchies ! 
Myriads have toiled their threescore years, and bled, 
And swallowed loathingly their galley food, 
And died, the slaves of myrmidons, for this ! 
Childless Chaldea ! realm of sorceries, 
And worldly wisdom and enchantment ! queen 
Of all that charms man's nature and inflames 
His fatal hopes — pale dust to dust gone down — 
Thy sole memorial but a word — a name ! 

The pale pure pearl in summer daylight smiles, 
But diamonds, gained by blood, alone shoot forth 
Their radiance when the chandeliers disperse 
Wavering darkness and the shapes it broods. 



40 AiSADUOiN, 

Thus joy and fame, possessed by others' good, 

Shed their blest beauty o'er our brief sojourn, 

While fierce ambition's earthquake ravages 

Leave empires blackened by a nation's gore, 

And glooming 'neath the volcan blaze of war. 

Stand thou upon the holy hill of truth. 

And mark below the struggles and the wrath, 

The dreadful patience of death's artizans. 

Behold the monarch trembling with the fear 

Of viewless treason, troubled and unblest, 

While envy gazes from afar and sighs. 

See magi erring — and enchanters lost 

In their own labyrinths of fraud revered. 

The wanderings of the wisest and the fall 

Of bravest combatants behold ! and send 

Thy spirit on the winds o'er every clime 

To weep the ruin of earth's holiest hopes ; 

To weep that folly ministers to woe, 

That weakness reigns with wisdom, and the blood 

Of centuries but buys a gilded tomb ! 

Then what avails the voice of old renown ? 
The masques and riotings and glories past ? 
Lived Phalaris the merciless ? there are. 
Who doom deserving to the dungeon now, 
And chain high merit to the felon's wheel. 
Did Thais, frantic o'er the maddening bowl, 
Tempt him of Macedon to stain his name 
And in the torrent flame of Persia's throne 
Persepolis consume his memory ? 
Our fathers — faith's poor exiles, fed 



THE SPIRIT OF DESTRUCTION. 41 

By Red Men's charity, and warmed to life 
By their devotion to unfriended want, 
Went forth from unbought refuges and fired 
The dweUings of the monarchs of the land ; 
And from that midnight slaughter all, who dared 
The wreathing flames, fell by the sword or ball. 
Did the bold Granicus back to its fount 
In Ida bear the shrieks of dire defeat, 
And Issus and Arbela wail aloud 
O'er satraps, princes and Darius slain ? 
Europe through all her coasts with terror saw 
Destruction sweep o'er Austerlitz, and crush 
Hispania 'neath his iron foot, and hurl 
Embattled nations to the doom knell'd out 
By the vast Kremlin's Tocsin when his host 
Drank the cup of vengeance to the dregs. 
She saw the man of destiny dethrone. 
Demolish and confound the crowns of kings, 
While on his banner-bearers in the van 
Of desolation hurried, leaving slaves 
To bury their dead conquerors — or die. 
Drave Shalmaneser from Samaria sacked 
And pastoral Naplousa's mountain land 
The countless hosts of conquered Israel 
To bondage, martyrdom — and buried all 
Beneath the mysteries of viewless fate ? 
Careered Sesostris in chariots drawn 
By kings made vassals o'er the famished .J^alms 
Where erst they reigned in Plenty, Power and Peace ? 
Who hath not wept o'er Poland's utter spoil 
And Kosciusko like a star cast down ? 

6 



4:2 ABANDON, 

■ His country mangled, riven, with bleeding limbs, 
Hurled into Hinnom, darkened and devoured 
By boyars, starosts — ruffian hordes of chie s — 
Banished and banned, her patriot spirits robbed 
Of home and hope — ^her throne in ruins laid — 
And tyrants trampling in her temples armed ! 
Through ranks of victims crucified and racked 
Stalked fierce Volesus and his spirit glowed 
With demon gladness and a murderer's pride ? 
See Marat on the Greve ! or hear (and quail) 
The dying prayers of Glencoe, and the shrieks 
Of Saint Bartholomew — the feast of God, 
The holy eve of heaven ! and yet again 
Siciha's Vespers and the torch of Fawkes 
Mark and compare ! be still and weep thy heart i 

What hath been is and will be. Seasons change 
Their advent and departure ; empires fade 
And fall like autumn leaves ; and manners take 
New effigies, and customs like the moon 
Wex, glow and wane ; and e'en the steadfast earth 
Unfolds fresh aspects both of land and wave ; 
But man and man's strange nature never change. 
The mutability of brief frail life, 
The woes that weave their poison in the threads 
Of being, and the vanity that sinks 
In loathing sickness o'er accomplished fame — 
All utter counsel vainly— madly on 
Borne by the whirlwind of o'erweening pride, 
He pauses not — he breathes not in repose 
Till the grave buries pomp and great renown, 



THE SPIRIT OF DESTRUCTION. 43 

And desert winds o'er dreadful solitudes 

Utter their voices — chanters for the Dead ! 

What can avail magnificence and might, 

Dominion bounded by the ocean's surge, 

And fame, whose herald was stupendous fear r 

Search Memphian pyramids and mete by line 

Gigantic obelisks ; tread o'er the ground 

Where stood Diana's temple^ dashed to earth 

In blackened masses on the fated night 

That shuddered o'er the birth, in Macedon, 

Of the world's scourge and curse ; or print thy foot 

Among the ashes of Moriali's mount, 

And paint in burning hues its day of doom ; 

Dare the simoom and let thy voice be heard 

In Tadmor's awful solitudes, or turn 

And mourn dismayed in Balbeck's domes of death; 

Toll yet again the thunder knell of Rome 

And proud Athena, and let Egypt hear 

And echo back thine eloquence of thought ! 

And what shall this avail thee, if thou drink 

No loftier inspiration from the scene 

Than wonder and amaze and vain romance ? 

But if thou wilt be wise and choose thy good, 

The large revealment is before thee here. 

Ruins of glory teach thee meek content, 

Beatitude that offers silent praise, 

And stdl content, the best religion, — love, 

Untrembling confidence in Him who holds 

The universe in scales, and faith prepared 

To mingle with its Fountain at all hours. 

Destruction hath not slept since fell his chains 



44 ABADDONf 

In deep Gehenna at the fall of man ; 

But better minds, on high pursuits intent, 

Create and fashion fortune to their will. 

The outward ill may torture, and the strife 

Of the heart's foes may bow the spirit down, 

But over all they reign at last, and bring 

From the world's wreck and their own sorrows food 

To nourish christian meekness for the skies. 

Receive the legacy of buried years ! 
The thoughts sublime of high philosophy, 
The thrilling music of great intellects. 
It argues but a helot soul to pore 
O'er mouldering instruments of havoc — lance, 
Bowstring and javelin and catapult ; 
Or paynim rituals by Menes framed, 
Solon or Numa — fittest offered up 
To sculptured deities and pictured Gods. 
Holier than sage sanhedrim soared the thoughts 
Of Plato on their glorious way, and earth 
Grew lovelier than love's bright imagings 
Beneath tlhe starry splendour of his soul. 
The lion-hearted son of Arcady, 
Diagoras hath shined his memory too 
Deep in the stainless fountain of all truth ; 
For with the wanton creed and faith obscene 
And faithless deeds of Jove's mad worshippers 
He held no commune, but with mart3^r voice 
Bade Venus bind her zone and veil her brow, 
And Pallas cast awa^^ her aegis and no more 
Gorge her beaked eagle with the blood of men. 



THE SPIRIT OF DESTRUCTION. 45 

The maniac son of Semele he bade 

Forego his tliyrsus, and no longer fill 

The madden'd brain with fierce licentious thoughts. 

Thus in the council of his country's gods 

He stood — like Austin by Andraste's shrine 

On Stonehenge, girdled by the Druid band, — ■ 

And with a dauntless eloquence portrayed 

Their hideous idols, whom their bigots mocked. 

Banished, proscribed and with anathemas 

Burdened, alone into the desert passed 

The stern philosopher from bondage free. 

And Socrates hath left his legacy, 

The immortal science of a heart resolved 

To ratify its greatness in the hour 

Of doom, and o'er the shrinking dread of death 

Mount like Elijah to the heaven he saw. 

Lo ! what a hallowed beauty and a gush 

Of soft seraphic beings float around, 

When in. the music of an elder day 

The Samian sage Pythagoras reveals 

The inner brightness of his spirit throned ! 

These in a gross and grovelling time gleamed out 

As miracles of omen! and they stood 

Untrembling at the tyrant's judgment seat 

And heard, hke Galileo from the lips 

Of Bellarmine, the fiat undismayed. 

Like them, devoted scholar ! treasure up 
The oracles of nature and be wise. 
Look not on any faith with hate or scorn, 
For who hath throned thee in the place of God f 



46 ABADDON, 

Papist or Huguenot — Conde or Guise — 
Christian or Osmanlee or Brahma's chief — 
Guelph or Gibbeline — theist or priest — 
Their creeds revered call not thee arbiter ! 
It can avail thee nought to sear the heart 
Of blest humanity and brand the brow 
Of intellect with evil thoughts of men, 
And hoard in the bright mansion of young mind 
Harsh sentences and judgments to corrode 
The fair work of the Deity, whose love 
Pervades alike all nature and all hearts. 
Rejoice that thou art free to feel and think 
And utter without fear; that human judge 
No more hath power to chain thee in the flame, 
Or on the rack or sachentege. Beware 
That while, with ashes on thy head, thou sitst 
In penitence, those ashes from the fires 
Of vanity and pride fall not to sear 
The soul that should be purified by love ! 

Turn, Spirit of my song ! and gaze with grief 
Once more on death that in the noontide comes ! 
Methinks in crowded solitudes I stand, 
At nightfall, by the serai's darkening walls, 
In beautiful Byzantium, laved by seas 
Of old renown, the Euxine, Hellespont, 
And fair Propontis ; and the turban' d crowd. 
With ataghan and scymitar, pass on 
With hastened steps that fear yet will not shun 
The dreadful pestilence that sweeps along. 
The distant light of Pera, one by one, 



THE SPIRIT OF DESTRUCTION. 47 

Shoot forth, and the sweet voice of love's guitar 
Comes on the fragrant yet death laden air 
With a heart-stirring influence and charm 
That melts into the mind like childhood's smiles. 
Below me lies a weltering trunk, and yon 
The headsman sheathes his kinskal to relight 
His quenched chibouque, and drops into the dust 
The hoar head of the Hospodar. Along 
The colonnades move slow the Soldan's guards 
Silent and waiting death they dare not fear. 
The wan moon o'er the Bosphorus ascends 
With sicklied lustre, and her mournful smiles 
Rest on the countless monuments that throng 
Byzantium's land of burial ; and methinks 
The solemn cypress trees do moan the dirge 
Of all the morning sun shall see entombed. 
In stillness flies the pestilence ; and prince 
And slave lie writhing for an awful hour, 
And perish ; and the merchant's crowded mart 
Of loveliness from fair Circassia's vale 
Will open on the morrow to convey 
Beauty unto her bridal in the tomb. 
Life's breath is here extinction : moments grasp 
A thousand destinies ; and funerals glide 
Like evening shadows by, as thick and fast ; 
And up the ladder of the dead methinks 
I see the votaries of Islam pass, *. 

In silent shadowy multitudes, to lay 
The idols of the heart's worship where no morf 
Bereavement and lone widowhood of hope 
Pour earth's deep night o'er visions of the blest. 



48 ABADDON, 

Woe sits in every threshold ; and the hour 

Of prayer, by struck muezzin call'd in vain, 

Passes without a voice ascending up. 

O night and pestilence ! and doubt and death ! 

How terribly distinct the heart-pulse throbs. 

That soon may cease ! as through the quivering gloom 

The quickened vision glances on the shade 

Of fierce Abaddon's form that hurries by! 

— Anark and Rioter in myriad woes ! 
The fierce orgasms of maddened agony 
Have been to thee electric ecstacy, 
Demoniac rapture — since the smile of God 
Was clouded by despair that weds with crime. 
Before thee sink the beautiful — the bard, 
Wasted in youth and in his flower age seared 
By the world's samiel and his own quick thoughts — 
The hero on the bosom of renown — 
The sun-eyed child whose being is a bliss — 
The virgin in her loveliness — the son 
Of many hopes and dreams sublime of love, 
When the first dawnings of his fame gleam out. 
The mightiest armies of the dead rise not 
From gory battle field or lava seas 
Drowning still cities in deep floods of fire. 
Or earthquakes yawning to profoundest depths. 
Or tempest, or crusade, or ghastly plague. 
Deeper than the rent banners of the slain 
Was steeped the soul of Caesar in men's blood; 
And Atila from Chalons' streaming plain, 
Heaped with its hecatombs of victim's fled 



THE SPIRIT OF DESTRUCTION. 49 

Before Theodric with a heart afloat 

In gore of Hun and Goth. Judea's soil 

Grew rank in richness o'er the sacrifice 

Chivalric monarchs, led by bigot wrath, 

Offered to Saladin and the Sepulchre. 

Lo ! awful victory o'er seas of blood 

Waving her standard, while the world contends 

On Zama, Cannse, Waterloo, made rich 

By human hearts forever pierced in vain ! 

But Persecution hath a wider range. 

An ampler spoil than these ; lo ! from the roll 

Of Record starts the pallid student up 

And cries — " Thou prince of justice and of peace ! 

" Wolves ravin in thy fold, and mercy shrieks 

" In vain for succour while the guiltless die ! 

" Familiar and inquisitor and doom! 

" Apostle, prophet, martyr — child and eld ! 

'* Freedom and shackles and the axe upraised 

" Red with the life of Hampden, Sydney, More ! 

'* Tyrants and parricides and length of years, 

" Ismael, Aurung-Zebe and Tamerlane ! 

'* Oh, the soul sickens o'er the scroll of fame, 

" The just man's wrongs, the widow's sightless tears, 

" The orphan's helpless woes, the tyrant's power, 

" The pride of Mammon, and the painted brow 

" Of hypocrites exulting o'er their prey. 

" God of the guiltless ! in Peru's dark mines 

" Her kings dig gold for murderers ! and see 

*' Assassins goading to the Oregon 

" The ancient sovereigns of our plundered realm !" 



50 ABADDON, ETC. 

Thus deems the nobler mind, intent to delve 
For knowledge and yet shuddering o'er its toil. 
Thus vanish generations down the gulf 
That opens to eternity, and thus 
The Fiend of Ruin wastes a dreaming world. 

But there shall come an hour when truth shall stand 
Upon the mountain and declare to earth 
Her seraph oracles ; when love shall thrill 
Each bosom wedded to the world's wide joy. 
And image in the fountain of the soul 
The universal bliss ; when faith shall roam 
On lovelier meads and hills with glory clothed, 
O'er whose bright summits rainbows rest in heaven, 
And over the charmed universe of thought 
Pour its pure radiance from the shrine of God. 
Then, cries the vision of the banished saint, 
In deep Gehenna's darkest depth again 
Shall writhe in adamantine manacles 
The Spirit of De.struction, and no more 
Vainly appeal pale famine's hollow eye, 
Or broken voice of burning pestilence, 
Or unheard groans of battle raging on. 
But dove-eyed peace shall float on snowy wings 
O'er nations banded in each other's love, 
And the free souls of 'Heaven's blest children flow 
In light and love o'er earth and rest in God ! 



THE HEART'S APOCALYPSE. 



Ev 'sX-riVi 5(^'>i TOMS docpovg s'-yiw /3iou- 

Avd^wn'oj 'aruj^wv (fw^srai uroo rrij sX'rWoff. — Menander. 

Why wake ye, memories of devoted hours ? 
Delirious dreamers, sleep forever now ! 
Throug-li the cold tempest, that around me lowers, 
Glance not heaven's glory on my darkened brow ! 
Hushed hearts, that quail o'er still despair's last vow, 
Breathe awful music 'neath a stranger's touch, 
And minds, that rocky as their fortunes grow, 
Like mountain torrents gush when tasked too much — 
They bear long years, but dare not feel their burden such. 

Though shook by every gale, yet, rooted, deep. 
Youth's hapless love lives through all power of change ! 
Too pure to shrink, too proud to wail or weep, 
It fills all things with memories vast and strange ; 
Where'er the rainbow bends or sunbeams range, 
Or lightning flames or thunder heralds God, 
In ruined castle or romantic grange. 
It gathers flowers to clothe its native sod, 
And o'er the birthplace hangs where young hearts rushed 
abroad. 



52 THE heart's apocalypse. 

The wasted heart retains its earliest glow, 
As trampled flowers their odour, not their bloom — 
Though doomed no more the thrilling bliss to know, 
That threw its angel glance beyond the tomb ; 
Mid all that can man's lion heart illume, 
Mid all his boundless hopes, ambitions, fears, 
One image steals o'er all its glow and gloom, 
Troubling the fountain of forbidden tears, 
And fading not, though borne far down the sea of years. 

The worn mind clings to this — this beautifies 
The temple it must ruin ; all things sink 
Into one passion ; — life of earth and skies 
Becomes a frenzied ecstacy to drink 
The poison-cup, from which we vainly shrink, 
The deep cup brimmed with deathless destinies ! 
Hurled on by agony, which cannot think, 
We search vast ocean and world-studded skies 
For one sweet home to rest from griet that never dies. 

Again — and yet again, my earliest love — 
Ellen ! thou fabled Clara of my song ! 
My lonely heart, unchanged, is doomed to prove 
A sleepless watcher o'er thj^ nameless wrong — 
An unseen visitant, who roams along 
Thy desert way, and loves to trace thy tread. 
Though downward tending where Oppression strong 
No more can bow thy wildly throbbing head. 
Nor gore thy bosom fair among the sceptered dead ! 



THE heart's apocalypse. 33 

Pale, chilled, and passionless, thine imag^e steals, 
With wrought brow, hollow cheek, and fnded eyes. 
O'er me when most tlie quickened spirit feels, 
The soundless hour of midnight phantasies ; 
Then pallid Memory on dark wings flies, 
Like birds to Tinian's isle from ocean's storm. 
To thee and lov^e, romance and May-night skies, 
And for an hour it slumbers 'neath the charm, 
That, as an angel garb, hath ever wrapt thy form. 

Then, in communion with eternal days, 
I clothe my soul in sanctities, and yearn 
For that restoring hour when scorn or praise 
Shall mock no more the heart that cannot learn 
To quench the shrine where love's first odours burn ; 
When courteous speech shall sanction spotted crime, 
And tyrants from their sacrifices turn 
No more exulting, but, beyond all time. 
True hearts, long sundered, clasp in glory's realms sublime. 

We feast on hope as 't were our vital food — 
And linger o'er it with a vain delight ; 
We banquet on the air when tempests brood, 
And breathe the rose when at its heart is blight ! 
Misguided, hopeless pilgrims of the night, 
Grasping at shadows in an unknown land. 
Victims of visions, gathering wrong from right, 
With foes behind us and on either hand. 
And led by danger on where giant fiends command. 



54 THE heart's apocalypse. 

' Would I had been thy brother ! life had then 
Been pleasant to thee, and thy virgin smile 
Had lingered yet — like twilight in the glen, 
Revealing a bright spirit ! — to beguile 
Thy little cares, with deep and patient toil 
To build a quiet refuge for thy rest. 
To love thee with a hallowed love, and pile 
Blessings around — in each myself most blest — 
Had been my daily joy — so joy was in thy breast. 

But thou art fated to endure reproof, 
Linked to a serpent evil none can rend — 
Doomed to the dismal refuge of a roof 
Whence hope was banished by thy nearest friend — 
Creating images of woe where blend 
All separate features of thy own despair — 
And, worse than madness, destined to depend 
On him who peopled all thy landscape fair 
With grief, repentance, doubt, and cold and crushing care ! 

And I, when vesper lifts its diamond brow, 
And zephyrs glide in music through the grove, 
Oft sink in anguish o'er thy fate, as now, 
And sanctify thy sacrilege of love ! 
Where'er o'er earth my wayward passions rove. 
To thee ne'er faithless, still to Derby's wood 
They turn enchanted — and ascend above. 
When by that silent forest shore we stood, 
Rememberest thou, lost love .f*— the sun went down in blood ! 



DESPONDENCY. 



There is no bliss in being ; all in vain 
We toil and struggle here ; in grief and pain 
Born to a world of sufferance and of sin, 
And doomed to woo what none can ever win, 
Life is a weary burden, hard to bear, 
Of dark offence and desolate despair — 
A lingering helplessness — a quenchless thirst 
To taste and yet a shuddering o'er the worst. 
The diamond dawn of being — its blest hours 
Of love and innocence — young budding flowers ! 
Its earliest pleasures, bursting into bloom, 
Only to blossom o'er the chill dark tomb. 
Soon fade and perish, and hope's rosy light 
Throws lurid gloom o'er sorrow's wailing night, 
Which shrouds the heart in such unmeasured woe 
As they, who deeply fee}, alone can know. 

Oh, how the heart-pulse throbs with burning flush 
When life's young feelings o'er the bosom gush, 
And earth unfolds her glories to the eye, 
And angel harps are heard along the sky, 
At that sweet season when the spirit pours 
Its starlight beauty o'er the eternal shores ! 
What radiant forms glide through each Eden grove, 
Forms full of loveliness and bliss and love — 



56 DESPONDENCY. 

Ideal shapes from fancy's magic mould, 

Never beheld when the warm heart grows cold, 

And the wan hue of sickly thought doth spread 

O'er living brows the image of the dead ! 

The glorious skies, where angels sing in praise, 

Their unfurled pinions flashing heaven's own blaze ; 

The fair green earth — the vestibule of heaven. 

Where spirits commune in the dusky even ; 

The wild lone main, with all its worlds beneath, 

The dim mysterious palaces of death ; 

The joy of thought, the rainbow of the mind, 

The silent rapture of a soul refined ; 

All cease to charm when want and woe assail 

The shuddering spirit with their spectre wail. 

E'en in the dayspring of confiding youth 

When the pure bosom is the shrine of truth. 

Lost in himself amid the false and vain, 

Man looks abroad upon a world of pain 

With the cold eye of unobservant scorn, 

And wonders why this wretchedness was born. 

Oh, what is human hope ? a viewless star, 
That never shines upon us where we are ; 
A glimmering light, that, throned in other spheres, 
Only reveals the darkness of our fears ; 
A world beyond all other worlds on high, 
That mocks the gaze of every mortal eye ; 
A realm of dreams this life cannot fulfil. 
Forever distant, wander where we will. 
Oft and yet vainly hath my worn heart sighed 
For Joys that budded but to be denied ; 



DEtiPONDENCV. 57 

And vain hath been my spirit's airy flight—*- 
It fell from heaven in sorrow's troubled night, 
And sunk below the common hopes of man — 
Seared by the lightning of my being's ban. 
The loftier triumphs of the human breast, 
The proud ambition that can find no rest, 
The rainbow joys that glitter but to die, 
And love, our heaven or hell beneath the sky — 
All — all are vain ! the wide waste world is cursed 
By ills and wrongs — the wildest and the worst. 

Trust not in man ! confide not in the best, 
But lock thy counsels in thine own still breast ! 
He loves thee not whose venal voice proclaims 
Vile paynim worship to dark Mammon's names ; 
He loves thee not who honours thee in pride 
But to reject when fortune is denied ; 
He loves thee not, who, in a darkened day, 
Leaves thee alone to track thy desert way, 
Content to mutter — " O, I wisii thee well !" 
When earth seems opening to the nether hell. 
Trust not in man ! the wisest err in ill, 
The greatest falter — and the human will 
Grovels forever in the darkness cast 
O'er life from the first sigh unto the last. 
Friends are but phantoms in thy bitter need. 
They counsel wisely while thy death-wounds bleed. 
Love lives in deep delusions born of youth, 
And dying in the dawn of awful truth ; 
Faith, like the raven from the ark sent forth. 
Wanders unresting o'er the lonely earth ; 

S 



58 DESPONDENCY. 

And hope, earth's only happiness, doth nurse 
Wild thoughts that centre in a burning curse I 
Trust not in man 1 confide not in his faith ! 
His tongue breeds venom and his spirit — death. 

There is no joy in life ; its hopes and fears. 
Its cold lip-smiles and unconsoling tears, 
Its woes that wither and its toil that tires. 
Its vain illusions and its false desires ; 
The keen pursuit, without a settled aim, 
Of bootless power and unaccomplished fame ; 
The changes, chances, and unwitnessed tears, 
The doubts that darken into endless fears ; — 
All pour the bitterness of wrath upon 
The heart of man — earth's dust compounded son ! 
Alas ! how poor is all he seeks to gain ! 
Clothed with bright pleasure but replete with pain. 
Bright with the colours fond self-love bestows. 
As mildew pictures like the morning rose ; 
Warm with the deep glow of the spirit's fire. 
As the dead earth beneath the victim's pyre ; 
Love spreads its glory o'er our youth, but leaver; 
The bosom blasted, and alone it grieves. 
Misfortune, fount of pride, in silence sears 
The purest feelings of our earlier years. 
And dread dependance o'er the high mind throws 
The robe of Nessus ; and our wants and woes 
Blanche the fair cheek and furrow o'er the brow, 
And make our progeny what we are now ! 



GRAVE WATCHING. 



Bring flowers and strew them here, 

The loveUest of the year, 
Wither'd, yet fragrant as her virgin fame. 

Who shimbers in this sunny spot, 

Yet to love's voice awaketh not, 
Nor hears in dreams her lover sigh her name. 

Where woods o'er waters wave 

She hath her early grave. 
And summer breathes lone music o'er the scene ; 

It is a green and bloomy place. 

And smiling Hke her living face. 
Whom memory weeps o'er, sighing " She hath been!" 

How sacred silence lies 
With dreamy heart-filled eyes, 
Shedding its spirit o'er the wanderer's heart. 
Beside the mound of dust, 
Where, throned, sit hope and trust. 
Serenely watching awful death depart. 

In sooth, 't were bliss to rest 
On nature's rosy breast 



60 GRAVE WATCHING. 

'Mid all this sweetness, quiet, faith, and love, 

While heaven's soft airs flit round 

The still and hallowed ground, 
And the blue skies lift the pure soul above. 

Albeit, I can but grieve 

That thou, pale girl ! didst leave 
Thy lover lone in such a world as this, 

Yet tender is my heart's regret 

As the last beam of suns that set 
To rise again, like thee, my love ! in bliss. 

Then let me linger here, 

Where none of earth appear, 
Save gentle spirits, kindred of the skies, 

And muse beside the gushing spring. 

Where wild birds carol on the wing, 
And live as thou didst, love ! on harmonies. 

O'er this green bank of flowers 

Hover the dew-eyed hours. 
Blending the incense breath of earth and heaven, 

As thou didst hallow time 

By thoughts and deeds sublime, 
And seal eternal bliss by wrongs forgiven. 

Inspire me with thy soul, 

And, while the seasons roll, 
No evil passion shall corrode my spirit ! 

I can forgive my fiercest foes, 

And think not o'er inflicted woes, 
While I thy gentle soul, lost love ! inherit. 



GRAVE WATCHING. 61 

What holy joy attends 

Such commerce with lost friends, 
Lost to our eyes but living in our minds ! 

Their memories breathe elysian bliss 

Around e'en such a world as this, 
Like Yemen's odours borne on genial winds. 

Bring flowers and strew them here, 

The loveliest of the year, 
And I will watch their spirits as they part ; 

For in a place so green and still, 

'Mid wood and water, vale and hill, 
My lost love dwells for ever in my heart ! 



PERE LA CHAISE.* 



Beautiful city of the dead ! thou stand'st 
Ever amid the bloom of sunny skies 
And bhish of odours, and the stars of heaven 
Look, with a mild and holy eloquence, 
Upon thee, realm of silence ! Diamond dew 
And vernal rain and sunlight and sweet airs 
Forever visit thee ; and morn and eve 
Dawn first and linger longest on thy tombs 
Crown' d with their wreaths of love and rendering back 
From their wrought columns all the glorious beams, 
That herald morn or bathe in trembling light 
The calm and holy brow of shadowy eve. 
Empire of pallid shades ! though thou art near 
The noisy traffic and thronged intercourse 
Of man, yet stillness sleeps, with drooping eyes 
And meditative brow, forever round 
Thy bright and sunny borders ; and the trees, 
That shadow thy fair monuments, are green 
Like hope that watches o'er the dead, or love 
That crowns their memories ; and lonely birds 

* The Cemetery of Paris. 



PERE LA CHAISE. 03 

Lift up their simple songs amid the boughs, 
And with a gentle voice, wail o'er the lost, 
The gifted and the beautiful, as they 
Were parted spirits hovering o'er dead forms 
Till judgment summons earth to its account. 

Here 't is a bliss to wander when the clouds 
Paint the pale azure, scattering o'er the scene 
Sunlight and shadow, mingled yet distinct, 
And the broad olive leaves, like human sighs, 
Answer the whispering zephyr, and soft buds 
Unfold their hearts to the sweet west wind's kiss, 
And Nature dwells in solitude, like all 
Who sleep in silence here, their names and deeds 
Living in sorrow's verdant memory. 
Let me forsake the cold and crushing world 
And hold communion with the dead ! then thought, 
The silent angel language heaven doth hear, 
Pervades the universe of things and gives 
To earth the deathless hues of happier climes. 

All, who repose undreaming here, were laid 
In their last rest with many prayers and tears, 
The humblest as the proudest was bewailed, 
Though few were near to give the burial pomp. 
Lone watchings have been here, and sighs have risen 
Oft o'er the grave of love, and many hearts 
Gone forth to meet the world's smile desolate. 

The saint, with scrip and staff, and scallop-shell 
And crucifix, hath closed his wanderings here : 



t>4 FEKE LA CHAISE. 

The subtle schoolman, weighing thistle down 

In the great balance of the universe, 

Sleeps in the oblivion which his folios earned ; 

The sage, to whom the earth, the sea and sky 

Revealed their sacred secrets, in the dust, 

Unknown unto himself, lies cold and still; 

The dark eyes and the rosy lips of love, 

That basked in passion's blaze till madness came, 

Have mouldered in the darkness of the ground ; 

The lover, and the soldier, and the bard — 

The brightness, and the beauty, and the pride 

Have vanished — and the grave's great heart is still ! 

Alas, that sculptured pyramid outlives 
The name it should perpetuate ! alas ! 
That obelisk and temple should but mock 
With effigies the form that breathes no more. 
The cypress, the acacia, and the yew 
Mourn with a deep low sigh o'er buried power 
And mouldered loveliness and soaring mind. 
Yet whisper " Faith surmounts the storm of death !" 

Beautiful city of the dead ! to sleep 
Amid thy shadowed solitudes, thy flowers. 
Thy greenness and thy beauty, where the voice, 
Alone heard, whispers love — and grieenwood choirs 
Sing 'mid the stirring leaves — were very bliss 
Unto the weary heart and wasted mind. 
Broken in the world's warfare, yet still doomed 
To bear a brow undaunted ! Oh, it were 
A tranquil and a holy dwelling-place 



J['KRE LA CHAISE. 65 

To those who deeply love but love in vain, 
To disappointed hopes and baffled aims 
And persecuted youtii. How sweet the sleep 
Of such as dream not — wake not — feel not here, 
Beneath the starlight skies and flowery earth, 
'Mid the green solitudes of Pere La Chaise ! 



AN EVENING SONG OF PIEDMONT. 



Ave Maria ! 't is the midnight hour, 
The starhght wedding of the earth and heaven, 
When music breathes its perfume from the flower. 
And high reveaUngs to the heart are given ; 
Soft o'er the meadows steals the dewy air, 
Like dreams of bliss, the deep blue ether glows, 
And the stream murmurs round its islets fair 
The tender nightsong of a charmed repose. 

Ave Maria ! 't is the hour of love. 
The kiss of rapture and the linked embrace, 
The hallowed converse in the dim still grove. 
The elysium of a heart-revealing face, 
When all is beautiful — for we are blest, 
When all is lovely — for we are beloved. 
When all is silent — for our passions rest. 
When all is faithful — for our hopes are proved. 

Ave Maria ! 't is the hour of prayer. 
Of hushed communion with ourselves and heaven, 
When our waked hearts their inmost thoughts declare. 
High, pure, far-searching like the light of even ; 



AN EVENING SONG OF PIEDMONT. 67 

When hope becomes fruition and we feel 
The holy earnest of eternal peace, 
That bids our pride before the Omniscient kneel, 
That bids our wild and warring passions cease. 

Ave Maria ! soft the vesper hymn 
Floats through the cloisters of yon holy pile, 
And 'mid the stillness of the nightwatch dim 
Attendant spirits seem to hear and smile ! 
Hark ! hath it ceased ? The vestal seeks her cell. 
And reads her heart — a melancholy tale ! 
A song of happier years, whose echoes swell 
O'er her lost love like pale bereavement's wail. 

Ave Maria ! let our prayers ascend 
For them whose holy offices afford 
No joy in heaven — on earth without a friend — 
That true though faded image of the Lord ! 
For them in vain the face of nature glows, 
For them in vain the sun in glory burns, 
The hollow breast consumes in fiery woes, 
And meets despair and death where'er it turns. 

Ave Maria ! in the deep pine wood. 
On the clear stream and o'er the azure sky 
Bland midnight smiles, and starry solitude 
Breathes hope in every breeze that wanders by. 
Ave Maria ! may our last hour come 
As bright, as pure, as gentle, heaven ! as this ! 
Let faith attend us smiling to the tomb, 
And life and death are both the heirs of bliss ! 



THE IMPERIAL SACRIFICE. 



This poem was written at the request of my friend Jolm Howard Pajnie. 
on the occasion of Charles X. laying the corner stone of the monument, in 
the square of the TuiUeries, to Louis XVI. ; one of the most unpopular acts 
which an ill-established monarch ever committed. 

Heal' ye the rush that, like the mountain storm, 

Rolls deep and awfully along ? 
Lo ! what mute horror, hke a sorcerer's charm. 

Holds that upgaxing throng ! 
Amazed the unfettered vassal stands 

Before his captive lord ! 
See how he gazes on his blood-red hands 
And shakes the purple drops from his uplifted sword. 

Where is the monarch ? where his train 

Of lords and ladies fair ? 
And where the adoring crowd, whose hearts, like rain 

Or dew in summer's air. 
Shed light and joy and regal pride 

Round Bourbon's royal son .'' 
Hark ! 't was a groan as if a mouajxli died I 

The earthquake has begun ! 



THE IMPERIAL SACRIFICE. 69 

How the vast mass of human life doth move 
And tremble like an avalanche on high ! 
Flows such deep terror from devoted love 
And loyal truth and sacred fealty ? 

Alas ! before the palace of his sires, 

A glorious line of kings, 

The crownless king beneath the axe expires — 
The shout of triumph and derision rings. 

Lo ! where they move in long and dark array 

Witli banner, paU, and shroud ! 
The smoke of censers dims the eye of day. 

Religion cries aloud ! 
High o'er the pomp of royal funeral rites 

In meek devotion paid. 
The uplifted cross moves* on 'mid thousand lights, 
Where a great nation like one hermit tread ! 

How mournfully, 'mid chanted hymn, 

And requiem murmured low, • 

And orisons round tapers dim, 
While countless forms like shadows swim, 
The deep knell tolls a nation's wailing woe ! 

Why throng they round the accursed spot r 

Away ! it was the deathbed of a king ! 

O banished Bourbon ! knowest thou not 

Thy brother perished like a felon here .'' 

O hearst thou not the shout of madness ring ? 

And seest thou not the badge of death they bear ! 

Fly, chief betrayed ! in silence fly. 

Thy throne is stained with blood ! 



70 THE IMPERIAL SACRIFICE. 

Turn not again thy blasted eye — 
They come ! they come ! hke Gierstein's torrent flood. 

Ah ! 'twas the daemon forms of other years, 
That hurried o'er my brain ; 
The miscreant host that drank a nation's tears, 
And feasted on the slain. 
I see them now — each gory brow, 
Each crimson hand — in wrath they stand 
E'en on the spot where Louis fell 
And Austria's lovely daughter died ! 
They throng around like shapes of hell, 
The sacred pomp of funeral pride, 
And shriek and yell and hurtle in the air, 
In vain, to mock the rites that doom them to despair. 

The sacrifice is paid ! 
Rest, martyred Louis ! in thy glory rest ! 
Thy riven crown is laid. 
Thy broken sceptre on thy bleeding breast. 
Rest, for thy requiem hath been said ! 
Rejoice, thou hearst our prayers among the blest ! 
Here, on the earth once hallowed by thy blood, 
O royal martyr ! let thy presence dwell ! 
Where frantic murderers at thy death hour stood, 
And o'er thee raised hate's maddening yell, 
With holy joy and sacrificial praise 
We build thy temple tomb — thy mausoleum raise ! 



THE LAST HOUR OF THE POLONESE. 



Count Pulaskt, banished from his own ruined country, sought fame and 
true glory by his services in the American Revolution ; and fell at the siege 
of Savannah, while rallying the flying forces of the wounded Admiral D'Eh- 

TAING. 

Vainly in battle's lava van 

The highborn Pole had striven ; 
His warriors quailed beneath the ban, 

The doom of earth and heaven ; 
And Warsaw's last proud spirit fled 

Before the Cossack host, 
While far and near the unburied dead 

Shrieked wildly — " all is lost !" 

Doomed to despair, by vultures rent, 

And blotted from the earth. 
Pale Poland to the tyrant bent, 

The child of monarch birth ! 
And ravening hordes of serfs o'erran 

And sack'd the imperial realm. 
Where thousand kings in battle's van 

Had banner borne and helm. 



72 THE 1-A.ST HOUR OF THE I'OLOXESE. 

Wrenched from the heart of nations — thrown, 

A felon's quivering corse, 
A limb to each accursed one — 

Could daemons spoil thee worse ? 
Oh, how could men behold nor stay 

The bandit league of blood, 
The deed of that unhallowed day 

Whose triumph none withstood ? 

Thou parted realm of bleeding hearts ! 

Thrice widowed child of woe ! 
The glory of thy power departs 

And leaves thee — ah, how low 1 
Could one of all thy sons abide 

To see the spoiler's sword 
Wave o'er the ruins of his pride, 

The standard of his lord? 

Let tyrants vainly trample o'er 

The wreck of feeble men, 
Till Europe quakes from shore to shore 

Like the wild thujider's glen ! 
They cannot break or bend or bind 

The Will sublime and free, 
Nor chain nor crush the immortal mind — 

Such, blood king ! spurn at thee. 

Dispersed like beams of deathless fire 

The hunted Polonese : 
Some lighted Stamboul's funeral pyre 

Among the hills of Greece ; 



THE LAST HOUR OF THE POLONESE. 73 

Some o'er pale Gaul their spirit cast, 

And Freedom's voice went up ; 
And some — Pulaski was the last — 

Drank at our trial cup ! 

His sword — his only birthright now, 

His heart, — his only dower, 
His only pride — a soul to glow 

O'er Freedom — hope's sole flower ! 
Pulaski from the ruins sprung 

Of empire, shrine and throne. 
Back on his foes a deep curse flung, 

And wandered forth alone ! 

He rode upon the midnight wave 

And dared the ocean wind; 
The billow was a happier grave 

Than the earth he left behind : 
His spirit mingled with the main 

And drank its music then, — 
There were no mounds of victims slain, 

No screams of dying men. 

He came where Famine held her guard, 

And giant Danger stood ; 
He was his own one great reward 

In tent or field or flood ! 
His eye amid the brave and free 

Shone like the brow of even — 
The star of empire yet to be — 

The Aurora light of heaven ! 
10 



74 THE LAST HOUR OF THE POLONESE. 

His clarion voice to wrath awoke 

The faint but fearless host ; 
The lightning- of his whirlwind stroke 

Restored the battle lost ; 
His warhorse sprung — ere carbine flashed, 

The foeman headless laj^, 
And on, where treacherous wildwoods crashed, 

He held his victor way. 

He soared his broidered banner high 

O'er Wissihiccon's glen. 
And sent his fierce loud battlecry 

Through hosts of banded men ; 
Wronged victor in a foreign war. 

He laid his laurels down, 
And rendered to a worshipped Star 

A glory not its own. 

When torrent War in flame rolled on 

To Georgia's pinewood heath. 
And dying prayer and shriek and groan 

Called warriors to their death, 
Like hope around deathbed despair, 

Pulaski hurried by, 
Meek grandeur in his dauntless air. 

And triumph in his eye. 

The siege beneath Savannah's towers 

Unfolds its fearless band, 
Who count not foes but wasted hours 

Dear to a bleeding land ; 



THE LAST HOUR OF THE POLONESE. 75 

Yet few in peril now are blest 

While thousands war within — 
High floats proud Albion's scornful crest — 

Who shall the glory win ? 

Soul of the battle ! son of Gaul ! 

Beware thy dauntless tread ! 
The bastion shakes — the ramparts fall — 

The dying and the dead 
Lie mingled 'neath yon trembling tower 

Where fires through darkness glow — 
On ! on ! 'tis victory's chosen hour ! 

Why shrink the siegers now ? 

Where is Pulaski ? Where the Gaul 

Sheds life upon the ground, 
Where Death stalks o'er the shatter'd wall, 

And mad Rout cries around ! 
Hark ! Flight and Terror hear his cry 

And Glory lights his spear — 
They mount ! they mount ! they fall ! they fly I 

Where is that Form of Fear ! 

Low on the green turf bleeding, dead ! 

Despair beside him lies, 
Fame from his plume and helm hath fled — 

The light of all his victories ! 
Who doth lament the hero gone ? 

The Patriot fall'n ? Two nations there ; 
Poland, her last devoted son ! 

Columbia ! her glory's heir ! 



THE CAPTURE OF ANDRE. 



'T was the midnight hour, when the Traitor bade 

His country's foe adieu, 
And broken gleams of moonlight played 

The dew-dropp'd foliage through ; 
The autumnal wind, in gusty sighs, 

The twinkling forest fann'd. 
While Love seemed stooping from the skies, 

To bless a bleeding land. 

Ill-fated chief! youth on thy brow. 

Ambition in thy heart, 
Fame smiles in gladness on thee now — 

Oh, haste not to depart ! 
A voice comes from the wildwood dim. 

But breathes no midnight prayer, 
And vague vast forms like shadows swim — 

Lo ! war and death are there ! 

Hark to the sound of the measured tread ! 

Mark yon quick shooting gleam ! 
Stern hearts are where that flash is shed — 

Yon white tents are no dream j 



THE CAPTURE OF ANDRE. 

Thy path lies through a host of men 

Whose souls are in their swords, 
And a cross of shame is in yon glen — 

They heed no gentle words. 

Oh ! gallant is thy proud array, 

But souls as proud as thine, 
Like meteor lights, around thy way 

In gloom of battle shine. 
Beware the scathe of their patriot ire ! 

Though the Traitor gives thee scope — 
Beware the blaze of the beacon fire ! 

Or thou hast no farther hope. 

On, on the Briton warrior goes, 
And the Traitor bids God speed ! 

Through the banded line of his sleeping foes- 
Young hero ! take good heed ! 

The woods are silent, but life is there, 
And the weapons of war are round, 

And a lone far cry rings on the air — 
Thou art on forbidden ground ! 

" Who rides so late .'"' Three warriors start 

From the shattered ravine dun, 
And feai* sinks on the Briton's heart, 

For his camp is almost won. 
" Speak out the watchword !" sternly gleam 

The bayonets raised on high, — 
He looked to wood and field and stream, 

But uttered no reply. 



78 THE CAPTURE OF ANDRE. 



He marched to death with a daunted heart, 

For his was the doom of shame ; 
And his spirit shrunk from earth to part 

With a brand upon his name : 
And his sternest foe bewailed the fate 

That stained his pride of mind, 
As he stood in his last hour desolate, 

To death, not shame, resigned. 

He looked to the glorious sun and sighed, 

And to earth he gave a tear, 
And then, with a thought, he cast aside 

The weight of his grief and fear. 
For a moment's lapse each panting breath 

Was heard amid the crowd. 
Then the platform fell, and the groan of death 

Rose fearfully wild and loud. 



MEMORY'S REVEALINGS. 



O'er life's brief, fitful day, 
Through the deep cypress vista of the Past, 
Linger and watch, like pilgrims on their way 

O'er Afric's voiceless waste. 

What meets thee there, pale child ? 
The glimmering ghosts of being's happier years ? 
What hear'st thou ? Sighs along the whispering wild, 

Too full of woe for tears. 

Gone to the realm of Mind, 
To the dim dwellings of the seraphs gone, 
The hearts that breathed their music on the wind — 

And 1 am left alone. 

Alone 'mid Life's wild stir, 
Where toil o'erwears and thought corrodes the frame. 
And great Ambition bears the felon's slur, 

While Glory's but a name ! 



80 memory's revealings. 

Grief and despair attend 
My wayward wanderings o'er the shadowy heath, 
Yet, many an image of a long loved friend 

Floats o'er the land of death. 

O'er the quick spirit's eye, 
Like gleams through white clouds of Night's diamond star, 
Time's hallowed memories, from their haunts on high, 

Thrill me like things that are. 

Oft to the echo of my song 
The earliest touches of my lyre have wailed 
O'er him who perished ere I cursed men's wrong. 

O'er her who never quailed. 

Yet there were more — proud boys, 
Whose minds just budded when the stem decayed; 
Whose bright eyes gleamed with all earth's earliest joys — 

And mirrored worlds they made. 

And others, to whose spell 
All spirits bowed in rapture and in bliss, 
Whose smile like incense on the bosom fell — 

Doomed to the earth-worm's kiss ! 

Electric Memory springs 
To one whom years of early love endeared. 
We parted ; Death closed round him his dark wings, 

He died — ^but never feared. 



memory's reveaungs. 81 

Descend, pale visions ! come 
Round my dark spirit on your angel pinions, 
And waft my prayers to heaven's ethereal home 

Of Princedoms and Dominions ! 

Glide, like June's twilight hues, 
O'er the green mountain and its vale of flowers, 
Round my lone path, and o'er its thorns diffuse 

Odours of lovelier hours. 

So my rough road shall lead, 
Temptation foiled and persecution scorned, 
Where youth no more shall struggle, toil and bleed. 

But Virtue reign adorned. 

So trial shall achieve 
Its best reward, the conscious pride of Truth, 
And Love no more o'er baflled transports grieve, 

In blest eternal youth. 



11 



THE EUD^MONIST. 



Last night, o'er glorious wo >ds with leaves like wings^ 
Luxuriant meads and orchards all in bloom, 
And the glass'd beauty of transparent springs. 
Which seem'd elysium far beyond the tomb, 
The sunset linger'd, and threw o'er the gloom 
Radiant revealments of a holier trust, 
And, as I gazed, methought the grave's cold womb 
Could never quench the spirit proud and just, 
Nor dim the light of God in earth's unhonoured dust. 

From their blue orbits in the realms of air, 
Forth flash the myriad monarchs of the night, 
Regents of heaven ! who hold o'er man's despair 
The silent empire of serene delight ; 
Gloriously beautiful and deeply bright. 
Their emanations blend like music's breath, 
And to the bosom through the enchanted sight, 
Their softness and their sanctity bequeath. 
The knowledge how to live — the hallowed awe of death. 

Memory, melancholy and patient hope 
Attend your missions through tlie midnight hours^ 
Unfaltering courage with life's ills to cope, 
Devotion kneeling in forsaken bowers, 



THE EUDiEMONIST. 83 

And breathing odours from youth's withered flowers. 
Life, at the best a dream of happier spheres, 
A dim, vague vision while the tempest lowers, 
In your soft light o'ercomes its human fears, 
Bends o'er the throne of thought and worships heaven in tears. 

How burns the spirit, in its seraph mood, 
To drink your mysteries, the shadowy smile 
Of Him, who beautiful from chaos' flood 
Wrought countless worlds ! how boundless hopes beguile 
The heart that festers in its earthly toil. 
And give to night enchantment, when the mind, 
Untaxed, untasked, around its shrine may pile 
Sweet buds of thought, whose» fragrance in the wind 
Soars to love's glorious realm, by martyrs scarce divined. 

With awful reverence on my soul I gaze. 
The echoed image of a birthless God, 
The trembling shadow of Jehovah's blaze. 
Whose light to heaven mounts from the buried sod ; 
On seraph wings electric thought abroad 
Rushes and floats on midnight's silvery sea, 
And from all lands where human foot hath trod, 
And all that glow in fablhig fantasy. 
Return, with hoarded gems, too blest e'en thus to be. 

'Tis only when the dust, the tomb's dark dust 

Hath shrined our ashes that our memories bloom. 

'Tis only then the intellect can thrust 

Aside the darkness of our mortal doom ; 

But even now, though grovelling in the gloom 



84 THE EUD^.MONIST. 

That broods perpetual o'er the deeds of earth, 
The soul, in hope of spotless life to come, 
Drinks in quick glimpses of that deathless birth, 
Whose happiest days endure nor agony nor mirth. 

The evil know this not; the stained in soul, 
The sear'd in guilt, the branded and the lost ; 
Cains of their kind, o'er them all seasons roll, 
Unmark'd, uncheer'd by all that gladdens most; 
The fiendish calumny, the tumid boast 
Darken their sun, and wassail wastes the night ; 
But to the heart oft pierced and foiled and cross'd, 
Imagination, steeped in nature's light. 
Brings highest, purest bliss from its empyreal flight. 

At Pentecost, the eleven together sat. 
Bereaved of Him who veiled his power and died, 
The Omnipotent, the Deathless ! to his fate, 
That hurled destruction on man's maniac pride, 
Submitting meekly ! poor, outcast, belied, 
Netted by foes, in danger, want and woe, 
They talked of him, from whose gored, writhing side 
Earth's poor life gushed, while heaven's own radiant glow 
Revealed the Godhead's brow, and nature shrieked below. 

Darkened and desolate, and rent by doubt. 

Faith feebly soared though great love held its power, 

When suddenly high voices all about 

Uttered their oracles at midnight's hour. 

And heaven illumed revealed each holy bower 



THE EUDiEMONIST. 85 

Of rest and bliss, and all spake tongues unlearned, 
Adoring Him for this celestial dower. 
Then grieved hearts bathed in bhss, for which they yearn'd, 
While to the throne of God the Spirit blest returned. 

And thus, though oft bewildered and astray, 
Oft crushed by cares and every earthly ill, 
We yet sometiines may drink a wandering ray 
From the pure fount of Deity, and fill 
Our burdened spirits, on the holy hill 
Of the mind's Sion, with archangel thought, 
That well atones for suffering bravely still, 
And soothes the soul which years of woe have taught 
To reap deep wisdom from each work that God hath wrought. 



SUNSET AT SEA. 



Armies of clouds, that with the dayspring rose, 
In sable masses float and fade away ; 
The summer-sun — Jehovah's shadow — glows 
Along the shoreless verge of parting day ; 
And Ocean lifts his vast brow to survey 
The radiance heaving like his proudest swell, 
And gorgeous companies in heaven delay 
To drink new glory ere they haste to tell 
In Fancy's phantom realms, how Ocean's sunset fell. 

In storm and gloom morn came, and midday hung 
Like a dark dream upon the o'erburdened brain, 
And the worn mind o'er its creations flung 
The hazy torpor of the listless main : 
But now to landsick voyagers again 
Fair heaven reveals the beauty of her brow. 
And, where the wing'd clouds sudden part in twain, 
Like Antisana's flame o'er mounts of snow, 
The evening sunbeams gush, and skies and waters glow. 



SUNSET AT SEA. 87 

Lo ! where the rainbow — radiant hght of love, 
Arch of the Deluge — Hope's celestial bride ! 
Metes the wild tempest in its wrath above, 
And seems o'er doubt, disaster, death, to guide 
Lone, trusting hearts beyond the scorn of pride ! 
On its fair height, methinks, a gleaming throng 
Of cherubim repose, and seraphs glide 
Amid their choirs, with one most matchless song, 
To waft His praise who sees and shelters human wrong*. 

Far o'er the billowy deep the summer sun 
Bursts like high heaven upon the spirit's eye, 
Or new-made angel's gaze, when thought doth run 
Down the bright lapses of Eternity ; 
Remotest ocean and unfathomed sky, 
Through all their depths of voiceless mysteries, 
Gleam at the glance of Being thron'd on high. 
And mind is lost in what that will decrees, 
Which holds its power alone in two eternities. 

Bosomed on grandeur 'mid the purple host, 
Soft, blue, and beautiful, the crystal heaven 
Looks down like Pity on the fierce self lost. 
And hushes hearts that long have bled and striven ; 
And, with a smile hke that of sin forgiven, 
Seems to allure the unhappy to its breast, 
Where God's high messengers, at morn and even. 
Come from the diamond mansions of the blest 
To whisper oracles and soothe the soul to rest. 



88 SJUNSET AT SEA. 

So through the glory and the pomp of eartli, 
The vain habiliments we weave in woe, 
The gentle hours, that blessed our joyful birth. 
Come o'er us with a bland and budding glow. 
In youth we feel, in manhood search and know ; 
One for enjoyment, and the other, Fame ! 
Oh, happier far to treasure and bestow 
The diamonds of the heart, than crown a name, 
And shrine a memory here, where first Oblivion came. 

Before the faint breeze, o'er the slumbering Deep, 
The clouded ship without a sound moves on ; 
And now the clear horizon seems to sleep 
In that soft sea of light, as on a throne. 
Where all the clouds adore the triumph won. 
And throng around the sun's immortal shrine ; 
They rise, sink, burn — ind, ere the crimson's gone, 
The purple robes them in a garb divine. 
Till dusky death hastes on, and utters " All are mine !" 

Where sea and sky, like love and beauty meet, 
The illumined vapour revels in the breeze ; 
So deep its brilliance, and its smile so sweet, 
So awful in their silence, trackless seas. 
With all their wild and maddening mysteries, 
Methinks I sail on that charra'd visioned wave. 
The saint in Patmos saw — where deathless trees 
By mirror' d waters bloom, and princedoms lave 
Their wings of thousand eyes — beyond earth's dungeou 
grave. 



SUNSET AT SEA. 89 

And yon the shore of Paradise, the home 
Of wrecked affections and unblest desires, 
And hopes that fed on poison ! thither come 
The forms that shadowed sorrow's wasting fires, 
The hearts that glowed along the thrilling wires ; 
And voices, wafted on the holy air. 
Echo the music of archangel lyres, 
And many a child of sin, in Love's high prayer, 
Adores the power benign that rescued from despair. 

Wedded to images of lonely thought, 
Linked to the dim world of past revelries, 
The mind that long unto itself hath wrought 
Fairy enchantment from whate'er it sees. 
Creates a shrine in every cloud that flees ; 
Temples and chateaux, groves and meadows bright 
With violet smiles, that perfume every breeze, 
And towers and palaces, in that deep light, 
With the old look of pride salute the radiant sight. 

And in those wing'd and wandering mansions dwell 
Affections, thoughts, hopes, fears, and transports past, 
The blighted love, that like Phaeton fell, 
The great ambition, like a shadow cast 
O'er the dead solitude of Barca's waste ! ' 
And through the blue and glorious boundlessness, 
To each sweet star that visited our last 
And wild farewell, our visions haste to bless 
Hours happier for their doubt, and victors of distress. 



12 



90 SUNSET AT SEA. 

Thou sacred Tempe of the weaned mind ! 
Hope in stern trial — home in wildest storm ! 
Imagination ! — wing'd upon the wind, 
Child of the rainbow, gifted with a charm, 
That sanctifies the heart, and keeps it warm 
With beautiful humanities — delay, 
While years depart, and, in all trouble, form 
Thine airy armies round me, though my way 
Should lead o'er Hecla's fires, or orient Himmaleh ! 

Thou to our mood dost fashion outward things, 
And all the chainless elements combine 
To shed the bloom without the bitter stings. 
That panoply, O Earth ! each flower of thine ! 
Thus in blest solitude we grow divine 
With a far higher nature than our own, 
And follow Hope along her golden line, 
While mingle smile and sigh and mirth and moan, 
To that bright realm of dreams where Mercy holds her 
throne. 

Thus, in the solitude of Ocean, come 
Thrilling revealments of a holier state. 
Great thoughts that struggle for their native home, 
Deep feelings tortured in the cell of fate, 
Fame crushed by falsehood, love by causeless hate ; 
And, floating on the wave that cannot rest, 
E'en Death becomes companion, courteous mate, 
And friend and counsellor — and he is blest 
Who robes Life's tempest with the rainbow of the breast. 



HOPE. 



Like the foam on the billow 

As it heaves o'er the deep, 
Like a tear on the pillow 

When we sigh in our sleep , 
Like the syren that sings, 

We cannot tell where, 
Is the fond hope that brings 

The night of despair. 

Like the starlight of gladness 

When it gleams in death's eye. 
Or the meteor of madness 

In the spirit's dark sky ; 
Like the zephyrs that perish 

With the breath of their birth, 
Are the hopes that we cherish — 

Poor bondmen of earth ! 

The pleasures and pains. 
That pass o'er us below — 

Fade like colours and stains 
On the cold winter's snow ; 



92 HOPE. 

All the loves of the bosom 
That burns with delight, 

Are mildew' d in blossom 
And wither'd with blight. 

The sunbeam of feeling 

Lights the ruins of love, 
And sorrow is stealing 

O'er the visions above : 
Like a spirit unblest 

Hope wanders alone, 
With a heart ne'er at rest 

In the future or gone. 

She drinks from time's cup 

. The bright nectar of heaven, 

And her spirit mounts up 

'Mid the glories of even ; 
But the world drugs with bane 

The chalice of joy. 
And the storm o'er the plain 

Descends from the sky. 

From the bowers of repose 

Like a spectre she starts, 
And she breathes the spring's rose 

O'er the depths of all hearts ; 
But fancy and feeling 

Must vanish in sorrow, 
Struck hearts have no healing — 

Hope sighs o'er to-morrow. 



STANZAS, 
Written in the Park of Versailles, May 19, 1826. 



O'er the bright lawns of lilied France arise 
The purple lights that herald springtime morn, 

And perfume floats along the pale blue skies 

Of countless flowers from shower and sunlight born. 

The daybreak zephyrs breathe their rosy balm. 
Bland music melts along the olive wood — 

All nature smiles in joy's elysian charm, 
The magic of the world's deep solitude. 

Morning's young glories with their radiance gild 
Park, vineyard, garden, forest, field and tower, 

And fairy flowerbells, with night's pearl dew filled, 
Breathe beauty o'er the sweetness of the hour. 

How silent all ! the monarch spell is gone. 
That shed its bliss through every bosom here ; 

Earth's fairest palace yonder stands alone. 
No voice is heard — no waiting forms appear. 



94 STANZAS. 

None but the sentinel's — whose hollow tread 
Wakes moaning echoes in the faded halls, 

That sound along, like sighings of the dead, 
The ruined grandeur of those kingly walls. 

All else is silent as the realms of shade. 

And fountains gush and forests wave in vain ; 

The slave commanded and the king obeyed. 
And wild mirth mocks at desolation's reign. 

Oh ! 'tis a weary and a wasting thought, 

The mirth and madness — triumph and despair ; 

The pride and pomp — the deaththroe and the nought 
That crown with ruin scenes so heavenly fair. 

It glooms the light of love and chills the mind, 

This awful dream of desolating years ! 
In vain, flowers breathe upon the blooming wind, 

When every bud is wet with misery's tears. 

Here blood like torrents poured in fierce affray 
When anarch massacre swept o'er the land ; 

Here groaned the gored Swiss in the trampled way 
When proud France quailed beneath a mob's command. 

Here Almaine's loveliest daughter — queen of mirth, 
Reigned and tejoiced amid her glittering train : 

Here terror hurried o'er the shuddering earth, 
And death in darkness came — led on by pain. 



STANZAS. 95 

Could nature speak — could every matchless flower 

The demon deeds of other days attest, 
What startling tales of tyrant treason's power 

Would rise in throbs from every violet's breast ! 

How every statue from its throne would start ! 

And every sculptured lip grow quick with words ! 
Words whose deep accents chill the quivering heart, 

And pierce like arrows plumed or fiery swords. 

Oh, give me back my wildwood home again, 
The deep lone forest where the tread of crime, 

The shriek of woe, the clank of traitor's chain 
Fall like an omen on tlie ear of time. 

Here memory blasts the wreath that beauty weaves, 
And the heart sickens o'er the bowers of death ; 

Stern truth the dreaming soul of bliss bereaves, 
Earth's highest glory hangs upon a breath. 

'Tis morn — why wake not Gallia's monarch train f 
Closed the dim casements — silent every tower. 

Ring out the matin chimes ! more loud, again ! 
Proclaim the Levee ! cry the banquet hour ! 

Still the proud palace seems a sealed tomb, 
The glorious sepulchre of gorgeous kings, 

Wrapt in the grandeur of a living gloom, 
Where spirits flit on dim and shadowy wings. 



96 STANZAS. 

Yet by each fountain where the tritons sport 
With naiads 'mid the water's sunny play, 

Methinks, the shades of other years resort, 
Bask in the bloom and bless the purple day. 

For o'er a scene so passing fair as this 
Spirits must hover in the charm of love, 

And deem it still the haunt of angel bliss, 

The realm of blessedness and light and love. 

But, even here, 'mid all that thralls the eye, 
Dark thoughts and bitter memories will come ; 

Though beauty dwells in fairy earth and sky. 
Yet lovelier, happier is my own far home. 



THE DISINTERRED MASTODON. 



•• Made desperate by too quick a sense 
Of constant infelicity ; cut ofT 
From peace like exiles on some barren rock. 
Their life's sad prison, with no more of ease 
Than sentinels between two armies set." — Anon. 

Thy name is princely. Though no poet's magic 
Could make Red Jacket grace an English rhyme. 

Unless he had a genius for the tragic, 
And introduced it in a pantomime. 

Yet it is music in the language spoken 
Of thine own land ; and on her herald-roll, 

As nobly fought for, and as proud a token 
As Coeur de Lion's of a warrior's soul. — Halleck. 

Dark mouldered relique of an elder time ! 
Wreck of some fierce convulsion, all untold ! 
Revealing voice of glory and of crime — 
Of plenty's golden years — of garments rolled 
In blood of bondage to which madness sold 
The trusters of the traitors ! from the ground 
Thou risest, giant of the days of old ! 
Scattering thy pale dust on the earth around, 
Of buried monarchies to tell without a sound. 

13 



98 THE DISINTERRED MASTODON. 

The deep wild forest, where the wailing wind 
Moans its lone dirge o'er doomed and banished kings, 
Where gushed the fe«rless heart and soared the mind 
Of angel nature on its glorious wings ; 
The prairie's vast green solitude — the springs, 
That from hill fountains sung through ghmmering wood, 
Echoing the music of imaginings : 
O'er these thou oft hadst trod ere guilt and blood 
Rained daemon curses on the holy solitude. 

Ohio's marge — Wisconsin's mountain land 
Were prophets of thy footsteps, and thy tread, 
Like the far tempest's sigh, came o'er that band 
Of dauntless warriors, on whose crested head 
Rested the Atlas empire. O ye dead ! 
Your godlike energies would once outdare 
The bison and the mammoth ; never fled 
The unsuccoured red man from most hopeless lair, 
Nor shrunk your hero chiefs from last and worst despair. 

The spirit of a day that knew not fear 
Was on them ere the subtle fiend of gain 
Baffled and blasted all they hoarded dear, 
And left them not till poverty and pain. 
Abasement and disease, with all their train. 
Bowed the proud monarchs to the earth in shame. 
Then fell the sun they ne'er will see again, 
Then darkness brooded o'er their ancient fame. 
And doubt and dust and death effaced each trophied name. 



THE DISINTERRED MASTODON. 99 

From Katahelin to the Chippewan, 
From fair Mohegan to the Oregon, 
Thrilled the bright spirit of immortal man — 
Earth gloried in the Nation's humblest son! 
But time and truth and all the vision 's gone — 
The Ozark mountains o'er the wreck of crime, 
The liviiig sepulchre of ruin moan, 
Yet their bold spirits, in their woe sublime, 
Like dying volcans, glare o'er the dark sea of time. 

From Damariscotta the strong Norridgewock 
Went forth and dared Pejypscot's boiling flood, 
The winter night, the storm, the beetling rock, 
The wily foeman ambushed in the wood ; 
The Narragansett, in his simple mood, 
Nourished the child that sacked his secret hold, 
And drank Miantonimoh's guiltless blood : 
And Metacom, the hero, sage and bold, 
Battled for crown and life until his heart was cold. 

And this is all your chronicle — huge bones 
Mouldering beneath the woods of ages — ye! 
Round whose green, living, and all-worshipped thrones 
Hurried a thousand tribes — dark destiny ! 
Couldst thou not spare the good, the just, the free ? 
The priests of nature and the kings of joy i 
And must these bones be offered up to thee, 
IVJoloch of gain ! why quake not earth and sViy 
When the Last Chief is shown — a beggar's mockery ! 



100 THE DISINTERRED MASTODON. 

In vain, devoted people of the leaves ! 
Tour Lalage* called on Ishtohoolo'st name — 
The iron heart that crushes, never grieves 
O'er its black orgies, and earth-seeking shame 
Visits no spirit whose assassin fame 
Is hell's own lucre. The reward will come, 
The retribution of the gory game, 
And Logan yet shall utter Cresap's doom, 
And glutted havoc turn the mad destruction home. 

Hopeless remorse and helpless agony 
Shall gnash and rend the slayers, for your doom 
Invokes meet vengeance from the eternal sky, 
The bolt that hurtles through the quivering gloom. 
Then tremble thou, hoar tyrant ! in thy home 
Of parricidal power ! a nation's curse 
Shall crown Tecumseh's and the years to come 
Shall load thy deathbed and unhonoured hearse 
With anguish, shame, despair, till none could wish thee worse. 

Gone from your beautiful and glorious clime. 
Trampled and spurned and crushed by foes in power. 
Drenched and devoured, without a single crime, 
By the fiend's fire, that tempts ye in the hour 
Of outcast bondage, with youi dreadful dower 
Blending the ruin of woe's gift — to feel — 
Ye yet may tell your tyrants in their bower, 
That, where your slaughtered fathers wont to kneel, 
Your blood will sow the soil with curses on their weal. 

* ronnsellm-s and pnppfi=. + The protficiiiiff deity. 



SONNET 



Ye eyes of Heaven ! what forms behind you wear 
Such radiant glories as ye shed on earth ? 
Where is the Eden of their heavenly birth, 
Oh, where the dwellings of those shapes of air ? 
Perchance, loved ones who felt hke us despair, 
And all the sickening ills of this world's dearth, 
Franchised from clay, may now come hurrying forth. 
To waft above each heart-revealing prayer, 
To listen to each sorrow of our lot. 
And tell earth's children, with a voice of light, 
They dwell forever in their holy sight. 
And never can in glory be forgot ! 
Love, the pure fountain of all mind, imparts 
Its bliss and beauty to che heaven of hearts. 



THE STAR OF MEMORY. 



Life ! life ! how many Scyllas dost thou hide 

In thy calm depths, which sooner kill than threaten 7 

Phineas Pletchek. 

O'er the lone temple of ray secret mind, 
That stands unnoted 'mid the pomp of men, 
Beam, star of memory! ever mild and kind, 
And wake the slumbering thoughts of youth agen, 
That every green hillside and shadowy glen, 
Peopled by angel visitants, may bring 
Once more the sinless hours of pleasure when 
The pure bright Spirit o'er the world could fling 
The beauty, light and bloom of one unchanging spring ! 

Bliss of my childhood ! sister of my soul ! 
Oft o'er thy name my voiceless spirit sighs, 
As my path wanders and the fleet years roll, 
And disappointments darken on my eyes. 
Oft through the depths of vast, blue, glorious skies 
My yearning though bereaved thoughts sadly roam, 
Painting thy form 'mid those eflfulgencies 
That glow forever round thy heavenly home, 
Whence thy soft smiles effuse o'er trial davs to come. 



THE STAR OF MEMORY. 103 

Thou wert my starlight, sister ! holy truth, 
Thrilling devotion and immortal love 
With seraph robes of beauty clothed thy youth, 
That breathed the mildness of the snow-winged dove ; 
At eve, accustomed by thy side to rove 
From toil unsolaced, unrewarded, o'er 
The new-mown sneadows where the flock and drove 
Gleaned after harvest, thoughts, bound down before, 
Gushed from their unsealed spring, with thee on high to soar. 

For in thy dayspring not of earth wert thou, 
And feeling, mother of event, foretold 
That malady should blanche thy beaming brow, 
Quench that sweet eye and leave that fresh heart cold ; 
Yet not in fear, but grief, didst thou behold 
The hastened vision of thine early end, 
And from the sacred wisdom, stored of old, 
Thy sorrow with the slow discourse did blend 
Full many a promise blest to soothe thy weeping friend. 

Thy widowed parent and thy brother heard, 
Cherubic Spirit ! thy pure breath depart ; 
Thy meek religion in our bosoms stirr'd, 
And hushed our dreadful hopelessness of heart ; 
For well we knew thine was the better part, 
That sin could never stain thy spotless mind, 
Nor evil — jaguar of the world's dark mart — 
Torture thy nature and thy bosom bind 
With chains of agony — and so we grew resigned. 



104 THE STAR OF MEMORY. 

Cease thy vain workings, memory ! and be stiil, 
And let me not repine o'er fading dreams 
Of lost affection that with anguish fill 
A wronged and troubled heart ! Thy beauty gleams 
Through being's storm, and by its hallowed beams 
Watches pale melancholy unto its rest, 
Where the rapt soul with truth prophetic deems 
It holds communion with thee. Sister blest ! 
And sinks away from grief on thine ethereal breast. 



SONNET. 



Welcome, Angelo ! to a world of care ! 
Fair firstborn of my youth, thou 'rt welcome here ! 
Thy smile can charm away the world's despair, 
And light a rainbow in the heart's wild tear. 
Thy fine intelligence, thy winning ways, 
Thy deep affection in life's first hours blown, 
Thy father's spirit, like a mantle, thrown 
About thee, studded by the pearly rays 
That float like music round the faery soul 
Of thy mild cheerful mother, with her smiles 
Beaming like starlight o'er the ocean's isles, 
That oft deep sorrow from my heart have stole — 
These blend ; my boy ! in thy dark ardent eyes 
Like zodiacs in the depth of heaven's deep skies I 



14 



THE DAWN OF THE DECADE.* 



Long- had I listened, free from mortal fear, 
With inward stillness and submitted mind. 

When lo ! its folds far waving on the wind, 
I saw the train of the departing year ! 

How I re-centre my immortal mind 
In the deep Sabbath of meek self-content ; 
Cleansed from the vaporous passions that bedim 
God's image, sister of the Seraphim ! — Coleridge. 



From the dim shrine of ages come thou forth, 
Bright year ! in thy pure robe of light and love, 
And shed upon the changed and darkened earth 
The empyreal hues that ever bloom above ! 
Come forth, ye destined days ! and gently move 
Along the dream-land of youth's gay romance, 
And, with a prophet's holy gladness, prove 
The visions true that glitter in your glance, 
As on to years of joy their fairy steps advance ! 

* Ten years, from 1830 to 1840. 



THE DAWN OF THE DECADE. 107 

Deep shadows hide revealments of events, 
That brood in thy dark bosom ; but thy knell 
Sounds through the solitudes of being, whence 
Time startles on our gaze, the doom to tell 
Of myriads trembling o'er the last farewell ; 
And vague presages of the awakened mind 
On the broad skirts of thy cloud-banner swell, 
And voiceless prophecies float on the wind 
To bid the evil fear — the good to be resigned. 

The chill night airs moan in the withered grass, 
The tedded grain is ganier'd up— the flock 
With bowed heads quiver as the frost-fiends pass, 
And seek the shelter of the beetling rock ; 
The leafless woods with dismal voices mock 
The storm-king as he rides through cheerless skies. 
And the deep mountain feels the rushing shock 
Of winter, on whose bosom nature dies, 
And birds, leaves, flowers and streams forsake their plea- 
santries. 

The son of toil from mead and field retires. 
Stores the rich maize and serves the generous steed. 
Content with health and hope and honest sires. 
Who knew not wealth, remorse, nor bitter need ; 
While, 'mid the city's pomp, wrung bosoms bleed. 
And riot laughs 'mid naked misery's cries. 
Trembling with anguish like a desert reed. 
And plumed and banner'd fashion flaunts the skies 
With mockeries of earth's woe and glittering pageantries. 



108 THE DAWN OF THE DECADE. 

This hath been ever ; callous pomp preludes 
The burglar's dark atrocities, and crime 
Haunts the pale prodigal and around him broods 
O'er midnight deeds that steep the heart of time. 
Condemned and banished from hope's sunny clime, 
Wedded to guilt by desolation's curse, 
Youth's better thoughts and manhood's aim sublime 
Vanish before despair that follies nurse, 
And leave the victim where no change could make him 
worse. 

Bring forth the criminal, stern justice ! hale 
The offender to atone for edicts broken ! 
Who comes ? the quivering outcast, wild and pale r 
No, 't is Society, whose voice hath spoken 
Ruin to hopelessness ; and many a token, 
'Mid its vain blazon, ratifies the deed ! 
But who shall doom the tyrant, whom no ken 
Can track or power condemn ^ Let justice read 
The uttered will of God and see the assassin bleed ! 

Time to the cold extortioner can bring 
No joy but gold, no profit but increase ; 
A frozen sea, his heart can never spring- 
To shield the friendless and shed holy peace 
On life's \Vild ocean ! — for the golden fleece. 
Though th' Argo's slave, he suffers, tortures, bends 
To baseness, courts contempt, and may not cease 
To feast on agonies, making fit amends 
For a hoar age of guilt by bribery when it ends. 



THE DAWN OF THE DECADE. 109 

But years on poverty confer the bliss 
Of a near close, and guide the weary soul, 
Through penitence, to meet the Earth-King's kiss 
With an abiding faith, that may control 
The dread and awe that o'er all spirits roll ; 
Wearied by toil uncheered, the child of grief 
Resigns his portion of earth's bitter dole. 
Wraps his worn thoughts in blest Religion's sheaf. 
And lies down ta his rest secure of long relief. 

Ye hasten on, devoted days ! and bear 
Change, trial, peril on your awful wings, 
Unsuccoured suffering and unwitnessed care, 
The wreck of empires and the fall of kings ! 
Oh, thickly crowd most dread imaginings 
Of all that man must bear ere love can link 
The amities of life — ere mercy's springs, 
Unsealed, flow forth for passion's slaves to drink, 
And men, from bondage loosed, maj' utter what they think. 

Weep, vigil stars ! be veiled, thou queen of light ! 
Eye of the universe, great sun ! retire ! 
For War, in hauberk mail, comes up through night 
To kindle on God'8 shrine earth's idol fire ; 
And paynim banner and unhoty lyre 
Mock the great rites by martyrs offered there ; 
Heathen and atheist, in hate's fierce desire. 
Band their bold legions with the fiends of air. 
And Antichrist leads on to trample and to tear. 



I 10 THE DAWN OF THE DECADE. 

The King of Sabaoth shall meet the foe, — 
Wreck and convulsion herald Him along, 
And the hills quiver and vast oceans glow 
Before His presence ! stained and troubled long, 
His true adorers shall uplift their song, 
And rebel armies mingle with the dust ! 
Then unbelief, woe, want and sin and wrong 
Shall sink to Hades, and the true and just 
A thousand years rejoice in their immortal trust ! 

Beautiful vision ! Poesy hath had 
Her multitude of dreams — her holy bowers, 
Creatures of purity and brightness, clad 
With the soul's sunshine, crowned by deathless flowers. 
Breathing heaven's joy and leading on the hours; 
But none so fair as this — oh, who shall see 
The maranatha broken ? the dark towers 
Of insult and oppression low ? or be, 
When dawns the day of peace from heaven's eternity ? 

Patience, meantime, must wait on power, and pride 
Hurl back reflected scorn, and wisdom hold 
Counsel with prudence ; duty hath defied 
Ancient authority, and, mild yet bold, 
The unanswering tyrant on his throne controuled ; 
And conscious Virtue in an adverse time 
May triumph, and to love all hatred mould, 
Endure reproach and bear the charge of crime, 
Yet in the elysium dwell of hallowed thought sublime. 



RELIGION UNREVEALEl). 



Ancient romance of visionary minds, 
Shadow and symbol of a holier creed ! 
To thee wild voices, wing'd on mountain winds, 
And countless hecatombs, predoomed to bleed, 
And earth and heaven, submissive to thy reed. 
Bore awful witness to surpassing thought ; 
And many a vast emprise and godlike deed 
Rendered its glory to thy fane unsought, 
And o'er the soul of man its thrilling magic wrought. 

Thy handmaid fable shadowed love and truth. 
As sunset waters image summer skies ; 
And genius blossomed in perpetual youth. 
Wielding at will prophetic destinies ; 
Each gem and pearl, that in dark silence lies, 
O'er thee its beauty like a sunbow shed, 
And for the heaven of thought, that never dies, 
Men toiled and suffered, smiling while they bled, 
Till heroes, sages, bards, rose gods among the dead. 



1 liJ RELIGION UNREVEALEI). 

O'er unlearned hearts, whence gushed translucent rills 
Of mind, the floating darkness of their day 
Lived with the presence of a Power, which fdls 
Each dewbell, leaf and raindrop with a ray 
Of that divinity, all worlds obey. 
Clothed in his terrors, on his mountain throne 
The Olympian Thunderer sat, upon the play 
Of arrowy lightnings — weapons all his own — 
Gazing with that dread eye which ever smiles alone. 

Below, that wondrous beauty of the heart, 
Dian of Delos, with a seraph brow, 
Threw the deep sanctity pure thoughts impart 
O'er the green vale of fountains, and the snow 
Of high Olympus. With his shaft and bow, 
Apollo wandered in his matchless might. 
The god of eloquence and song, ev'n now 
Invoked to crown the work of minds, whom night, 
In time's abyss, then brooded o'er with still deUght. 

Limpid and laughing waters leapt and sung 
Before the nymphs, and summer breezes came, 
Hymns of the watching heavens to chaunt among 
The old and solemn woods — wild haunts of fame ! 
The birthbed of full many a deathless name 
Was hallowed first by thoughts, whence forms arose 
Of virtue, beauty, glory — all that claim 
Resolve and wisdom — and each wildwood rose 
And oak wreath gave the power which great renown be- 
stows. 



RELIGION UNREVEALED. U3 

Imagination's Eden — Arcady ! 
Thy spirit triumphs yet o'er waste and death ; 
Thy hallowed hills, thy pure and glorious sky, 
And thy great thouo-hts, that burned in deeds beneath, 
And veiled with awe and beauty rock and heath, . 
To vast renown thy chosen name have given ; 
And not less lovely in thy victor wreath 
Beam the bland smiles, like tender eyes of even, 
Of Oread, Dryad, Muse, robed in the hues of heaven. 

The unsearched depth of the soul's mysteries 
Was to the men of elder time a home, 
A heaven, where dwelt their mightiest deities, 
Regents of good or ill — o'er years to come 
- Scattering their blight or brightness ! — Ocean's foam 
Gave birth to nature's crown of loveliness, 
Hope was their Iris through the sky to roam. 
And all their simple faith could not but bless 
Hearts quick to share all bliss, and soothe unshunn'd distress. 

Watchers and warders o'er the changing fate 
Of life's brief season — thrones of spirits blest. 
Where envy entered not, nor rival hate, 
The stars were hope's eternal home of rest. 
The o'erwrought brain, the worn and wasted breast 
Drank in the nightsong of the Pleiades, 
Whose music of the mind, like leaves caressed 
By dayspring zephyrs,winged on melodies, 
Wafted Elysium's soul on every holy breeze. 



15 



114 RELIGION UNREVEALEIJ. 

The headlong torrent with its noise of war, 
The brook that gurgled o'er the velvet vale, 
The hoar and giant mountain, seen afar, 
Whose dusky summit seamen wont to hail, 
Ere Tiber or Piraeus saw their sail — 
The awful forest, and romantic wood. 
Each had its god, its shrine, its song and tale. 
Twilight revealments of~a restless mood, 
Gentle creations of the heart's dim solitude. 

Gymnosophist or gnostic ne'er beheld 
Wilder or fairer visions ; every spot 
Was peopled by divinities ; hills swelled 
And valleys^glowed with grandeur ; unforgot, 
Man felt his Maker everywhere, and nought 
Dimmed his deep faith that they, whose features won 
His household prayer, would guide him to a lot 
Blest as the flower that blossoms in the sun, 
When toil had gained its meed, and virtue's race was run. 

Fear had its triumphs then — when had it not ? 
Cocytus, Phlegethon, the gulph of gloom, 
Forms shadowless in sunlight — shades of thought ! 
But sacred sympathies o'er all did bloom ; 
And the fair urn, unlike the mouldering tomb, 
Freshened the memory of the cherished dead : 
And, bending o'er it, love could still illume 
The father's ashes, and around them shed 
The sunbeams of the soul, that followed when he fled. 



RELIGION UNREVEALEt). 115 

Ancient romance ! thy spirit o'er me came . 
In early years, and many a weary hour 
Hath glided by, like music, while the fame 
Of genius held me in its welcome power. 
And now — though shadows rest upon thy bower, 
And sorrow weeps o'er my vain vanished dreams, — 
I feel, thou hadst a great and glorious dower. 
From whose vast treasure, time's unnumbered streams 
Have washed to us the gold that in our vision gleams. 



THE FATHER'S LEGACY. 



By Hudson's glorious stream, in death's cold rest, 
Thy head lies low, my great and gallant sire ! 
Pillowed in peace on earth's eternal breast, 
No more thy bosom pants with hope's desire. 
Now, more than ever, doth thy name inspire, 
For lingering years have wept above thy grave. 
And shed their cold dews o'er my lonely lyre, 
But to enhance the grief that could not save. 
The settled woe that sighs o'er Hudson's midnight wave. 

In the first gush and glory of my years. 
Ere reason glo ed, or memory held her power. 
Thy pale proud brow was wet with infant tears, 
And wild cries rose in thy deserted bower I 
Oh, how the dim remembrance of that hour 
Crowds on my brain like night's most shadowy dream, 
When winds wail loud and o'erfraught tempests lower, 
A glimpse of glory in a meteor's gleam. 
Sunlight in storms — a flower upon the rushing stream. 



•■I 



THE father's legacy. 117 

The budding boughs, the limpid light of spring, 
The mirrored beauty of the brimming rills, 

^ The greenness and the gentle airs, that bring 
Life's golden hours again, when heavenly hills 
And vales bore witness to the soul that thrills 
The heart of youth ere passion riots there — 
Shed o'er me now the loveliness which fills, 
At parted seasons, such as wed despair 

When being's day spring breaks and all but life is fair. 

Yet from this scene of most surpassing love, 
Not unrefreshed, I turn to happier years, 
Quick in their flight, when through the highland grove 
I ran to meet thee with ecstatic tears. 
And in thine arms forgot my deepest feai'S ! 
Oh, then thou wert to me what I am now 
To one blest boy — my sorrow's bliss — who wears 
The very majesty of thy high brow. 
The pride, the thought, the power, that in thine eye did glow. 

No proud sarcophagus thy corse enshrines, 
No mausoleum mocks thy mouldering dust, 
But there the rose, amid its mazy vines, 
Blooms like thy spirit with the pure and just ; 
And — image of earth's high and holy trust — 
Deep verdure smiles and wafts its breath to heaven, 
And, holier far than antique print or bust. 
Lives in my heart the portrait thou hast given, 
The worship of pure love — the faith of autumn's even. 



118 THE father's legacy. 

Thy Legacy was not the gold of men, 
The slave of pomp, the vassal of the mine, 
But an o'ermastering- intellect, that, when 
The world reviled and trampled, soared divine, 
And stood o'erpanoplied on God's own shrine ! 
This did' St thou leave me, Father ' and m^^ mind 
Hath been my realm of glory — as 't was thine — 
Though much it irks me to have cast behind 
Thy godlike skill to quell the ills of human kind. 

'Twas thine to grapple with the fiend of gain, 
'Twas thine to toil and triumph in the field — 
It cannot be that / should faint in pain, 
And like a craven, to the dastard yield ; 
On the Starr' d mead, and in the o'erarching weald 
It hath been mine to think and to be blest. 
And oft on mountain pinnacles I've kneeled 
To pray I might be gathered to my rest 
With glory on my brow and virtue in my breast. 

Though anguish throbs through all my bosom now, 
And wild tears gush whene'er I think of thee, 
Yet like blue heaven upon Cordillera's brow, 
Thy memory clothes me. with divinity. 
And lifts my soul beyond the things that be, 
The strife of traffic, falsehood's common fear, 
Friendship betrayed, unguerdoned vassalry. 
And every ill, that reigns and riots here, 
In this dark world so far from thine imrtortal sphere. 



THE father's LEGACV. lli> 

My earliest smiles were thine — my earliest thoughts, 
Like rojy light in morn's translucent sky, 
First from thine eye, my spirit's sun, were caught ; 
And as it gleams on days that vanish by. 
It turns to thee, my fountain shrined on high ! 
— My Sister ! is she with thee ? where thou art 
Thy children fain would be ! — on starbeams fly, 
Spirits of Love ! and in my raptured heart 
Make Heaven's own music till my soul in transport part. 

And teach me with an awed delight to tread 
The darksome vale that all must tread alone, 
And gift me with the wisdom of the dead, 
Justly to do, yet all unjustly done, 
Freely to pardon ! — Till the croN^Ti is won. 
Be with me in the errings of my lot, 
The many frailties of thine only son. 
And when brief records say that he is not. 
Hail his wronged spirit home where sorrow is forgot ! 



THE LAST SONG TO CLARA. 



Let no man seek 
Henceforth to be foretold what shall befall 
Him or his children. — Milton. 

" Wreathe thou the laurel with the bay, 
And let the Poet's triumph be 
The prelude of a lovelier day, 
The seal of immortality ! 
Crown thou the brow of thought divine 
With glory born of mind below, 
And fill with gifts the holy shrine 
Where hopeless spirits kneel and glow — 
Not with the light of joy to come, 
But in the lurid splendour cast 
O'er the wild story of their doom 
From the soul's morning beauty past ! 
So to lorn" love thou wilt fulfil 
The fate denied in mortal days. 
And bear afiection's harplike thrill 
Through all hearts in thy living lays !" 



TO CLARA. 121 

Thus, as beside the tomb of love, 
The monument of Heloise, 
When seraphs from air thrones above 
Leaned and sighed music on the breeze, 
I stood in that lone hour of thought. 
Which wafts time's shrouded memories on, 
And pours upon the waste of nought 
The loveliness of rapture flown, 
1 drank from spring's all spirit air 
The accents of a voice unheard, 
And clasped one bliss in life's despair. 
One thought of joy that in me stirred. 

" Thou of the bigot's darkened time !" 
(I murmured out a faint reply,) 
" Wert doomed to bear the brand of crime 
In the heart's home of ecstacy ; 
Martyr and mission'd spirit, sent 
From throbbing depths of holiest skies, 
To bless earth's love in banishment, 
And gladden loneliest destinies. 
Come from the fountain home of heaven, 
Come from the mountainhaunts of youth. 
And o'er me shed the rapture given 
To first love in the years of truth ! 
Give to the glance of memory's eye 
The flight of hope o'er future good. 
And to thy temple in the sky 
Summon dark thoughts from wave and wood ! 
I oft have bled in bitter strife, 
I oft have dwelt in lady's bower, 
16 



122 TO CLARA. 

But for this fated gift, earth's life, 

'Tis time's worst mock and hate's worst dower 

Nought in its heart but care and sorrow, 

In anguish born, in darkness ending, 

Haunting the footprints of to-morrow, 

For hope toward joy in shadows tending ! 

The world can talk, but I must feel. 

And men can counsel while I sigh, 

Wealth crowns the spirit that can kneel. 

But genius heralds destiny. 

They murmur error past — but how ? 

I was not born to bend and bow, 

God made me free and proud and just, 

Man, this dark thing of fire and dust — 

Thought comes not from the mould of earth. 

Nor feeling from the merchant's mart. 

And Glory, wed to Mind, has birth 

Alone in grief's mausoleum heart — 

Would' st thou know more ? go ask the fiend 

Why he veiled not his seraph head. 

Why unto man he scorned to bend 

The brow that heaven's own glory shed ! 

From thy shrined tomb in Paraclete 

Breathe yet again thy spirit o'er me. 

And I may better learn to meet 

The storms and strife that gloom before me ! 

Thy cloistered wisdom, vesper prayers. 

And matin hymns of hallowed love. 

Shed o'er these soft translucent airs. 

And fill me with the bliss above ! 

Tell mc once more thy pillow now 



■JO CLARA. ' 123 

Is Abelard's long widowed bosom, 

And smiles may light my clouded brow, 

And hope breathe life o'er youth's dead blossom !" 

Doomed 'mid a selfish herd to tread, 

To loathe yet leave not life's lone way, 

To breathe despair among the dead, 

And seek the warmth, yet curse the day — 

To stand on midnight hills, and grasp 

At glory's shapes, and find them madness — 

This, Clara, since our last wild clasp. 

Hath been my fate in silent sadness. 

And as the Meccan pilgrim wends 

Alone along the waste of death, 

And cheers him, when the sand storm ends, 

By the blest hope of Houri wreath, 

So I through living solitude 

Thine image bear with lonely joy. 

And, shadowed by the ancient wood, 

Paint thy bright features on the sky. 

Then should I not invoke the past 

To counsel and console my doom, 

And deem I meet thee on the waste 

Where towers sublime love's lonely tomb r 

Shall not my spirit hover o'er 

Thy slumbering brow and bless thee there ? 

And on thy children's bosoms pour 

The incense of a holy prayer ? 

Sweet Clara ! let me breathe my heart 

Upon those amulets of bliss, 

And, through their lips, to thee impart 



124 TO CLARA. 

The rapture of a farewell kiss ! 

I seek not wisdom from the crowd 

Who laugh in woe to worship pride ; 

With the world's men I can be proud, 

And king with king stand side by side. 

I gaze upon the stars of God, 

And deem my soul hath lost its sphere, 

For some strange crime doomed to this sod, 

Buried in doubt and darkness here ; 

I sink my soul within the soul 

That lights with heaven's revealings earth, 

And in the dust before The Whole 

Drop prostrate into deathless birth ! 

But, Clara ! in the dawn of mind, 
In the young glow, the gush of heart, 
Like music linked to autumn wind, 
Our spirits wed — and can we part .^ 
Can time's mildew or fading flight 
Ruin the home of hope we built. 
And, as we roam through storm and night, 
Our meeting bear the curse of guilt f 
Can we forget how oft we met, ^ 

How deeply loved, how wildly mourned. 
When tearless grief and vain regret 
Before love's shrine their ofierings burned ? 
Can we forget the sacred charm. 
The midnight hush of still commune, 
While the heart thrilled each folded arm, 
And hope soared up beside the moon ? 
Can we forget the starlight sail 



TO CLARA. 125 

On Housatonic's azure breast ? 

Can memory, mind, and love, all fail 

To tell us that we have been blest f 

There's not a grove in Ripton's vale, 

There's not a flower beside tiie river, 

That breathe.s not out Love's mournful tale, 

When pale leaves in the cold winds quiver — 

And shall we blot from life the hour 

That sealed us for undying fate. 

And o'er the bloom of young love's bower 

Cast the world's scorn and bitter hate ? 

I hear a voice from oceans past, 

The heart's knell o'er returnless years ; 

I stand upon life's shoreless waste. 

The haunt and home of buried fears ; 

And, as pale shades of hope flit by, 

And love in tears slow follows on, 

Missioned to one eternity. 

That bosoms future, present, gone, 

I cast my spirit o'er thy name. 

And deem me blest by love's lone tomb, 

For thou to me art hope and fame — 

The Pleiad of the world's cold gloom ! 



TO MY HUSBAND. 



I cannot but embrace the opportunity to present, in this work, the simple 
offering of a heart untainted by selfishness and unchanged by adversity 
when evil fortune darkened and afflictions troubled the fountain of my ^ov^.. 
The following verses, heretofore published, were addressed by Mrs. Jake 
Fairfield to the author, and may illustrate to certain men of malevolence 
♦ he depth and purity of a love which they can neither appreciate nor acquire. 

Blest be the hour that called thee mine, 

Hallowed in green bright memory ! 
When first we met, my heart was thine — 

How could I choose but worship thee ? 

Too well I felt that thou hadst loved 

Some gentle heart to sorrow given, 
And well I knew thou hadst bestowed 

Deep feelings that were rent and riven. 

And, in deep truth, I loved thee more 
For having loved as years had gone, 

For, oh, my spirit could adore 

The heart that throbbed so long for one. 



TO MY HUSBAND. 127 

Dear destined maiden ! wedded now 

To utter misery and woe ! 
I love her — for she kept her vow — 

Though tears from her swoln eyelids flow. 

Genius must suffer scorn and hate 

And insult from the reptile few, 
And I will glory that my fate 

Is blent and blessed with one so true. 

I love thee that thou art not loved 

By those whose praise is infamy ; 
It is enough that thou hast proved 

Thy heart doth dwell in purity. 

I've heard thee branded with a lie, 

And witnessed many an insult given 
By envious slanderers, who defy 

Their God, e'en on His throne in Heaven ! 

For this, I love thee, wedded one ! 

The scorn of vice is virtue's glory ; 
Grieve not o'er years of sorrow gone — 

Thy name shall live in glorious story. 

Would I could shield thee, chosen one ! 

By cold and cruel wrongs oppressed — 
I'd wander through the world alone, 

And find mv heaven on thv breast. 



128 TO MY HUSBAND. 

Let me partake and soothe thy grief, 
And bear with thee an injured name, 

For weahh is but a gilded leaf. 

And venal praise crowns not true fame. 

Can smiles light up thy face no more ? 

Must sorrow bear thee to the tomb ? 
Then while I breathe on earth's cold shore, 

Happy I'll live and share thy gloom. 

Thy pallid brow, where genius glows. 
Thy stainless heart that fears not guile, 

Each, dearer than the first spring rose, 

Glance o'er ray heart like heaven's sweet smile. 

Thou shalt not vainly sufier hate 

From those who scofied and spurned thy name, 
Heaven, with whom dwells atoning fate, 

Shall pour its blessing o'er thy fame. 

Could I upbraid thee, dearest one 1 

'Twould be for trusting those who hate thee; 

Yet gaze not thus on evil done 

For perfect bliss on earth would sate thee. 

False men, who haunt thee and pursue. 
With hate, thy lone and sinless way, 

Cannot — oh, joy ! cannot subdue 

The soul whose blossoms round thee play. 



TO MV HUSBAiND. 129 

I've heard thy spirit's quivering sigh, 

And seen thy heart in anguish torn, 
When friends were far and foes were nigh. 

And thou wert left alone forlorn. 

Alone ? oh, no ! — not so ! not so ! 

For one to love and bless was near thee, 
Who pillowed oft thy head in woe, 

And smiled in sadness oft to cheer thee. 

Oft will we blend our prayers, my love ! 

And heart in heart through being roam, 
They reck not what the world may prove, 

Who build and share each other's home. 

Oh ! let me suffer with the just, 

Whose dowry here is nought but sorrow ; 

Heaven's rainbow gleams o'er earth's cold dust, 
And lights the storms of life's to-morrow. 

My heart hath felt no^solitude 

When far from all the world save thee, 

Love, where no stranger steps intrude, 
Soars to heaven's purest ecstacy. 

Time cannot bring a change to blight 
The love I long have borne for thee — 

While back I gaze, with dear delight, 
Or forward on the days to be ! — 



BIRTHDAY MEDITATIONS. 



So when Detraction and a Cynic's tongue 

Have sunk desert unto the depth of wrong-, 

By that the eye of skill true worth may see 

To brave the stars, tliough low his passage be. — William Bbowns. 



O'er him, to whom the heartless world appears 
One vast aceldama of guilt and woe, 
A desert watei-ed by the bosom's tears, 
That long have flowed and must forever flow, 
Life's earlier hours with roselight radiance bum, 
Kindling deep incense in oblivion's urn- 
Blest is each scene of simple, trusting youth, 
Ere the heart breathes earth's thick and tainted air, 
When the soul bowed and worshipped holy truth. 
And bade its voice her oracles declare ; 
Backward he gazes on life's morn, and sighs. 
And pours his spirit through his swimming eyes. 



BIRTHDAY MEDITATIONS. I3i 

A sunbeam hovering on its golden wing, 
Mission'd from heaven to light this lowliest sphere, 
The heart breathes music in its blossoming, 
And throws its beauty o'er each infant year; 
But, like a star in mist and moorlands lost, 
It mourns, full soon, o'er all it loved the most. 

Quick o'er the gloomier realms of life in mirth 
Bounding, the spirit drank the rainbow light 
Of heaven, and scattered o''er the desert earth 
Fair tlioughts that gush'd in fountains ever bright ; 
Or brightness, shadowed for a moment, wore 
A deeper beauty than it knew before. 

Through the vast glorious depths of summer's heaven 
Rush the glad musiiigs of the high-soul' d boy ; 
Wing'd spirits, harping 'mid the clouds of even, 
Float round his path to crown his simple joy ; 
And fancy fables what the heart desires, 
And songs of rapture gush from golden lyres. 

Then Nature triumphs : forest, field and grove, 
Mountain and vale and ocean's pebbled shore, 
All breathe out blessedness and hope and love, 
Like Delphi and Dodona's woods of yore ; 
And magic sounds from the stirred foliage flow. 
And the wild billows, murmuring as they glow. 



132 BIRTHDAY MEDITATIONS. 

Love, truth and purity impart their sweet 

And holy light to all they look upon ; 

And childhood blesses all its wanderings meet, 

Leaving a track of rays when years have gone ; 

That when the bosom bleeds and thought grows cold, 

We may look back and feel e'en as we felt of old. 

Grief touches but taints not the budding heart ; 
Quick tears start only from the flashing eye ; 
Soon from young spirits mournful thoughts depart 
Like melting vapours from the morning sky ; 
The radiant sunlight of the pure mind throws 
A glorious beauty o'er our darkest woes. 

'T is the wide pestilence of sin, that makes 

This world the desert and the doom it is ; — 

Dark wanders midnight Fraud — and Baseness slakes 

Its goul thirst in the nectar of our bliss ; — 

A Section shrinks — cold interest frowns on truth. 

And love turns weeping to the bowers of youth. 

There memory lingers o'er the hoarded words 

Of sages old, the pleiades of earth ; 

And thoughts, that pierce like skill'd and mirror'd swords, 

From the heart's sepulchre in clouds come forth ; 

Hoar wisdom and romance beneath the spell 

Of music wed, and virtue cries " 't is well." 



BIRTHDAY MEDITATIONS. 133 

But soon from phantom dreams of happier days 
We turn like pilgrims from the desert's fountain ; 
Hope faintly lights our lone and wandering ways 
O'er the steep rocks and thorns of griefs bleak mountain; 
Prudence and knowledge, gods of guilt and gain, 
Fierce tyrants, rise and revel in our pain. 

Alas ! a child, I sighed to be a man ; — 

I little knew the meaning of my prayer ; — 

I recked not as in youth's greenwood paths I ran, 

How soon the clouds of ill would darken there ! — 

Sigh not for years — to tell thee life is woe — 

Change, anguish, death — all thou canst feel below ! 



SKETCHES IN PROSE. 



Probably, the subsequent articles will prove as enteriaining at. any poeniB 
couW be ; and they will serve a double purpose in this volume — though other- 
wise out of place — for the prose style of a poet will thereby be exemplified, 
and the intended number of pages, which a rapid edition and ill-health have 
prevented my accomplishing in poetry, will be completed in the description 
of poets. 

THE YOUNG POETS OF BRITAIN. 

Shelley, the eldest son of a British baronet, began his 
fatal career by espousing the most dreadful doctrines in mo- 
rals, politics, and religion. While yet a youthful member 
of the university, with a daiing temerity not more reprehen- 
sible for its impiety than its folly, he compiled from the works 
of the French and German atheists, and printed and pub- 
lished a pamphlet, every line of which was equally odious 
to the rational unbeliever and the true-hearted Christian. 
Though yet in his boyhood, when Shelley was summoned 
before the magnates of his college to answer to the general 
accusation, far from seeking escape under a denial of the 
act, or penitence for its accomplishment, he openly defied 
the gray-haired theologians, and attempted to vindicate the 
creed of Voltaire. The immediate consequence of his fool- 
hardiness may be easily imagined ; he was expelled the uni- 



I 



136 .SKETCHES IN PROSE. 

versity, shunned by former friends, deserted by his father, 
and driven forth upon the world, without wisdom to direct 
or funds to support him. ' The world was not his friend 
nor the world's law ;' his unreserved opinions were directly 
opposed to the established religious and political canons of 
his native land, and, in the recklessness of unrelieved dis- 
tress, he was fain to adopt the society and profligate career 
of associates, who were unrestrained in their excesses by 
any present or future fear. Thus the natural but impolitic 
indignation of his father only ratified the evil which he in- 
tended to correct, and haughty impenitence sprung up be- 
neath the burden of his misery. 

One would suppose that mankind, however they scorn 
precept, might be instructed by example ; but age follows 
age, and generation after generation di«appears, and the 
same follies are still predominant. Punishment, to be salu- 
tary, should be tempered by mercy, especially when inflicted 
by a paternal hand ; for ten thousand instances illustrate the 
unremembered truth, that the fiery spirit of youth can never 
be redeemed from the peril of disobedience by the stern 
commands or even the curses of a father. Forgetful of 
this, the ofiended baronet oflered his outcast son no refuge 
from his miseries, sought no knowledge of his pursuits, and 
appeared regardless of the fate that might attend him. 
From the deep humiliation of a spirit, waiting to be again 
received into favour, to the dark haughtiness of a banished 
heart, there is a quick and fearful transition. Day after 
day followed each other not more regularly than Shelley lis- 
tened for the knock of the postman ; but no tidings came. 
He inquircid ; his father had been in London, but had gone 
again. He wrote, but no answer followed. His humble 



SKETCHES IN PROSE. 137 

spirit wai exasperated; he earned money by advocating 
atheism and opposing government in the radical prints ; he 
felt himself abandoned, and in turn he abandoned all who 
had ceased to care for him. In a twelvemonth, he ran 
away from London with a boarding-school beauty, and 
spent many months in Scotland with as much pleasure as 
unwedded lovers, who live in defiance of the laws of God, 
can expect to receive from his hand. 

He had now put the seal upon his father's ban ; but he 
little cared what he or the world thought, so long as he was 
blessed by the smiles of his beloved. These were doomed 
to vanish soon. During his temporary absence, the partner 
of his guilt, actuated by the horror of her situation, threw 
herself into a deep river, and was brought out a corpse. On 
such a mind as Shelley's, this awful consummation was cal- 
culated to produce the most disastrous effects. Trouble and 
affliction, however accumulated, never melted his nature nor 
rendered it pliable to the touches of reason and loving-kind- 
ness. He gazed upon each successive stroke of the thun- 
derbolt, upon each molehill added to the mountain of his 
curses, as a newer and more exciting impulse to revenge ; 
and the most charitable construction we can extend to his 
writings is the belief that his manifold disasters, vicissitudes 
and trials thoroughly deranged his mind, led him to 
look upon the world as his sworn enemy, and, like Rousseau, 
to desire to grapple with the Being whose existence he de- 
nied, but whose omnipotence he felt. He plunged into the 
darkness of his creed ; he revelled in unintelligible myste- 
ries ; he recited his woes in most touching strains ; and the 
bitterness- of his spirit pervaded every stanza of his poetry. 
His mind was restless, and sought relief from any thing that 

18 



138 SKETCHES IN PROSE. 

could engage its powers ; his fine energies were, therefore, 
wasted in bewildered gropings through the darkness of fu- 
ture destiny, and moaning discontent over everything on 
earth. He rushed from England to Italy, and from Italy to 
England, like an unblest spirit. Neither the charms of By- 
ron's friendship, nor the kind-heartedness of Leigh Hunt, 
could compose his troubled mind, or relieve his bursting 
heart. Like Savage, he wandered beyond the knowledge 
of his friends, and more than once the heir of a baronetcy 
and j£3000 a year, was doomed to make the streets of Lon- 
don his only shelter, while cold and hungry, weary and 
alone. 

In the midst of these distresses his " Queen Mab" ap- 
peared ; and the withering severity of all orthodox reviewers 
attended his poem with the same immitigable reiteration as 
persecution pursued the ill-fated but gifted author. The 
metaphysical mysteriousness, the sceptical sentiments, the 
vague terrors and churchyard horrors of that poem were 
all obvious to the dimmest perception, while its hidden 
beauty, its delicate refinement of thought and imagery, and 
its admirable idiomatic style were as little perceptible to 
superficial i^eaders, as the clear water of the river is to the 
clown who hobbles over the ice. Shelley was disgusted with 
society in all its forms ; he was dissatisfied with the existence 
of everything natural, moral, and political; he confounded 
the reformer with the poet, and, in the latter capacity, 
imagined an Arcadian Utopia, which, in the former, he 
proposed to people with every grace and charity. His 
deviations from the canons of criticism and the social laws 
were soon deterred by the giants who guarded them ; and 
the friendless poet was thrown back upon himself with a 
mighty arm which might have crushed him but dared not. 



SKETCHES IN PROSE. 139 

Alter almost incredible sufterings from poverty and per- 
secution, Shelley was partially reconciled to his father ; and 
about the same time, he allied himself to the beautiful, 
accomplished, and gifted daughter of William Godwin and 
Mary Wolstonecraft. Educated in the doctrines of her 
intellectual but erring mother, and, with much of the mind, 
inheriting all the strong prejudices of her father, Miss 
Godwin affected to despise the chains of matrimony, and to 
rise above the common vassalage of her sex ; but, though 
she was the same faithful and devoted wife before as after 
the consummation of marriage, yet, she did not pause to 
think what moral ruin the universal adoption of her creed 
and practice would spread over the world. It is most 
lamentable that the deism of Godwin and the libertinism of 
Wolstonecraft should have been associated, in such a mind 
as Miss Godwin's, with the self-accredited irresponsible 
atheism of Shelley. Had her deep affections united them- 
selves lawfully to a pious and kindred heart, they might 
have won her to the cross she trampled on and the God 
whose being she denied ; but, fascinated by the intellectual 
qualities of Shelley, and content to follow the example of 
her mother, she debased the spirit that might have soared to 
heaven, and lost the friendship of all who respected the 
institutions of the society they adorned. 

Upon a large annuity allowed him by his father, Shelley, 
with Miss Godwin, removed into the country ; and many 
months passed away more happily than the misguided poet 
had hitherto experienced. 

There he produced many poems, and, among others, that 
wonderful creation of genius, "Alastor, or The Spirit of 
Solitude." 



140 SKETCHES IN PROSE. 

In this strange emanation of his power, the poet has 
wandered through those invisible regions, and drank at 
those fountains of early light, where his spirit always revels 
in ecstacy. Throughout the poem he has scattered much 
beautiful description, but we often turn away in wonder at 
the purpose of its introduction. The splendour of his ima- 
gination gleams upon a mass of broken gems — gorgeous, 
but valueless, and the gloom of his doubting heart hangs 
over his highest thought, like the smoke of the battle over 
the triumph of death. He yearns after something beyond 
attainment, and, like all who pursue the dictates of abstruse 
argument rather than the impulse of an incorruptible heart, 
he is invariably unhappy, while he exerts all the power of 
his mind to make his reader so. Leigh Hunt esteems this 
poem as one of the finest productions of the age. We do 
not object to the language, for that is pure old English, but 
to the dark thoughts and heathen sentiments of " Alastor," 
and these will forever deter the Christian from its perusal. 

" The Cenci," a tragedy produced about this period, 
though it has met with even a severer fate than Miss Baillie's 
" De Montfort," or Mrs Hemans' " Vespers of Palermo," 
or Coleridge's " Remorse," or Lamb's " Woodville," is 
pronounced by all who have read it, one of the most power- 
ful plays which have adorned English literature. The 
characters are beautifully delineated, the plot artfully ma- 
naged, and the denouement judiciously accomplished. Had 
Shelley always written like this, or never written any thing 
more, " The Cenci" might have held that exalted rank 
upon the stage and in the closet, from which it is now 
excluded by the name of the author. 
Unaccustomed to economy, and, like all men of genius, 



SKETCHES IN PROSE. 141 

profuse iu his liberality, Shelley was soon reduced to per- 
plexing straits and obliged to leave England to recruit his 
finances in Italy. Here he became the familiar friend of 
Byron; and his wounded s-irit was frequently consoled by 
the honest praises of the exile. Byron admired his genius 
but deprecated his sentiments ; for amid all his errors, his 
master-genius never wandered from a secret credence, or 
perhaps apprehension, of the truth revealed. His mind was 
too exalted not to seek an Almighty mind, and we have 
abundant reason to believe, that, in his latter years, he often 
lamented the skepticism of his youth. During the remainder 
of his brief and tumultuous life, Shelley reposed in quiet ; 
but in the propagation of radicalism and infidelity, his mind 
was more active than ever. " The Revolt of Islam," if it 
could be comprehended with less study than the Principia 
of Newton, would do great injury to young minds ; but 
fortunately the very title is incomprehensible to ordinary 
readers, and the whole production is a mass of splendid 
absurdity. The most beautiful language is enij^loyed 
without purpose, and the finest images brought forth to 
array his visions of a political millennium. 

The last production of Shelley was his elegy on the death 
of Keats. It is equally remarkable for its singular poetic 
beauty and its severe crimination of Croker, the savage 
reviewer of Keats. Mournfully he laments his departed 
friend, without apprehending that his words would soon be 
applicable to himself. Even while he poured out his la- 
mentations, the doom had gone forth against him — and it 
was speedily fulfilled. 

When he parted from Mrs. Shelley (such, at his request, 
she had become,) to go upon a sailing excursion with Cap- 



142 SKETCHES IN PROSE. 

tain Williams, he little thought that a strict account of his 
thoughts and deeds would be required of him before they 
met again. The day was beautiful and the sky serene, but 
a gust of wind suddenly arose, the boat upset and the friends 
were drowned. After a long immersion, the body of Shelley 
was found and buried by Byron ; and his wife with two 
children returned to London. " With the talents of an angel 
a man may be a fool :" we wish Mrs Shelley would remem- 
ber that a iDOTnan may be the same, and present the world 
with no more such works as, " Valperga," and " The Last 
Man." She possesses a noble mind and writes with almost 
unequalled power, but she, as well as Lady Morgan, must 
have made the discovery that the wanton sacrifice of all the 
heart (the household female heart, especially) holds invaluable 
and sacred, tends but little to recommend her writings to 
millions whose only happiness lies beyond this world. 

In a brief but affecting biography prefixed to his poems, 
Lord Craig has given the only information of which we are 
possessed relative to Michael Bruce ; he was the son of an 
humble and pious Scottish cottager, who restricted his own 
limited expenditures to give him a free education, and was 
rewarded by the high expectations which his youth excited. 
But these were all rendered vain by that deadly foe to 
human life, consumption. In his twenty-first year, the 
scholar and poet was hurried away from all his pictured 
scenes of happiness and fame, and his broken hearted mother 
left to bewail her irretrievable loss. Most of his poetry was 
composed while he suffered under the influence of disease, 
and while he moved, like a shadow, among the woods, and 
held eloquent communion with nature, or, with a flushed 
cheek, talked of earthly bliss to his love, who well knew 



SKETCHES IN PROSE. 143 

that he was journeying to a happier world. It is soft, and 
kind, and gentle, as his own heart — gentle as the lapse of 
the summer rivulet — bright as the moonbeam that shone 
upon his wanderings — and melancholy as the poor girl who 
mournfully listened to his tale of hope. He never speaks 
of fame, but his whole spirit glows with that fire which lights 
the altar of immortality. With him life had no cares, no 
agitations, no remorse ; and he avoided all anxious thoughts, 
by sending forth his spirit to admire the works of God, and 
resigning himself wholly to his will. The genius of Michael 
Bruce and that of the young German poet Kbrner were 
remarkably in contrast. Unhke the gallant hero of the 
sword and lyre, his spirit shrunk from war and tumult, and 
he enjoyed pleasure as exquisite on his still and lonely bed 
of lingering death, as thrilled the soul of Kb'rner, when it 
parted from the battlefield to seek its everlasting abode. 
In the one, all was mildness and simplicity, in the other, 
patriotism and sublimity. Each was fitted for his station : 
Bruce to console and comfort his weeping mother, from 
whom he was soon to part ; Kbrner to claim admiration, 
and to perpetuate an exalted fame. With calm philosophy, 
or rather Christian resignation, Bruce wanders and moral- 
izes among the woods and waters of " Lochleven," with 
martial gallantry, Kbrner wakes his countrymen to avenge 
their rights by the trumpet notes of his " Wild hunting of 
Lutzow." In his parting elegy, Bruce bids a tender, 
pathetic, and holy farewell to all he loves on earth, and sinks 
to his final rest, mourned, but not lamented ; Kbrner lies 
wounded on the cold ground at Asperne, and pours forth 
his last hymn to the God of battles, with the same sublimity 
of genius which had marked his brief but bright career. 



144 SKETCHES IIV PROSE. 

They both fell in their youth, they both were devout Chris- 
tians. The path of the German hero blazed with a grander 
light, but the mild radiance of the Scottish poet comes over 
the heart like a dream of beauty. 

Charles Wolfe, the author of " The Burial of Sir John 
Moore," was not less remarkable for his modesty, than his 
genius and erudition. His few poems were produced at 
long intervals, and suggested more by opportune occasion, 
or irresistible inspiration than any desire of fame. Devo- 
ting himself equally to his duties in the college and the 
church, he was not less coy with the muses than they are 
reputed to be with their votaries. He felt that higher 
offices than any appertaining to the minstrel or poet, had 
been assumed and must be maintained by him. He was not 
hurried away by that desire of distinction, which has too 
often rendered the poet unhappy but accomplished the tasks 
which he assumed, with the same patience that marked the 
labours of Gray. During the angry contention among 
impudent competitors for the honour of having produced 
" The Burial of Sir John Moore," Mr. Wolfe entertained 
an opinion so modest of his inimitable poem, that he did 
not deem it worth notoriety to claim the authorship ; but his 
friends, when he was no more, rescued this imperishable 
monument to his genius, from the hasty clutch of imposters, 
and exposed them to the shame they so deeply merited. 
Such an instance of unconscious power and disregard of 
distinction is seldom met with. 

The poems of Wolfe are characterised by simplicity of 
expression, strong sentiment, purity and pathos. His ima- 
ges are not huddled one upon another in undistinguishable 
redundancy, but shadowed among his thoughts, like moon- 



SKETCHES IN PROSE. 145 

iight among the woods. He discourses on human mutabil- 
ity with the jealous beauty, not with the stern austerity of a 
precisian, but the gentle persuasion of a philosopher and a 
christian divine. Unlike the polemic, who loses all discre- 
tion in his zeal, he does not hurry into the noisy din of strife, 
resolved to be victor or vanquished ; but meets his opponent 
on neutral ground, and sends him back to his entrenchments 
ashamed to protract the warfare. He advances no opinion, 
however indisputable, in direct defiance of prejudice, but, 
lamenting his dissent from the fond belief of others, gradu- 
ally counteracts their errors, and wins them to the cause of 
truth. His writings prove him to have been a meek and 
untiring apostle of his faith : and his premature death is to 
be lamented both by the lover of genuine poetry, and by 
those who wish well to the interest of piety and virtue. 

Of all the productions of Wolfe, " The Burial of Sir 
John Moore," has acquired and deserved the highest repu- 
tation. It is brief, but admirable ; not an image is misap- 
plied ; not a word expletive. It moves with a solemn pomp 
like the burial it describes ; and touches, by its pathos, the 
finest sympathies of the heart. All the customary obsequies 
are dispensed with, and the noble chief is buried as he fell. 

By this sublime hymn of death, Wolfe has immortalized 
both his own and the name of his hero. No British soldier 
can hear the name of Corunna, without rendering a tribute 
to the memory of Sir John Moore, the heroic captain and 
accomplished scholar, and the Rev. Charles Wolfe, the un- 
pretending poet of his renown. 

The beautiful skies of literature are often darkened by 
storms of passion, interest and revenge, but the annals of 
letters cannot record a more fearful sacrifice to the unprinci- 

19 



I UJ SKETCHES IN PROSE. 

pled vengeance ot° party, than the fine-minded and unfortu- 
nate Keats. His pure spirit allied itself to the kindred mind 
of Shelley, without imbibing contamination from his princi- 
ples. His heart was ever reaching after a purer state of 
morals and society, but he did not scorn or ofi'end the insti- 
tutions of existing polity- The dim genius of antiquity 
hovered over his thoughts, and he basked in the imagina- 
tive glories of forgotten days. He shrunk from the follies 
and crimes around him, and sought refuge from their influ- 
ence in the dreams and oracles of other years, yet, while he 
revived the beautiful and majestic imaginings of the olden 
time, and laboured to inculcate their high doctrines upon 
modern degeneracy, he was bitterly persecuted by the criti- 
cal satrap of a mercenary government, who added to the 
hireling vindictiveness of office, the envy of a low-minded 
literary rival ; and the fine sensibilities of Keats were wan- 
tonly sacrificed at the shrine of policy, while Croker ex- 
ultingly performed the executioner's office. 

A proud and dignified independence breathes through all 
the productions of Keats ; but there is nothing in his " En- 
dymion, or "The Eve of St. John," or the unfinished "Hy- 
perion," which could, in any possible degree, justify the 
privileged virulence of the Quarterly. We can readily be- 
lieve that high church tories, whose faith reposes on the 
formulfe of obsolete usages, may have found but little enter- 
tainment in the writings of this gifted youth ; but the bit- 
terness of that undistinguished invective, which they lavish- 
ed upon him, has, long ago, recoiled upon themselves with 
tenfold energy. There can be little doubt that the deep 
distress and despondency which terminated the life of Keats, 
were primarily occasioned by the relentless persecutions that 



SKETCHES m PROSE. 147 

followed his writings ; and this is not the only instance of 
premature death, caused by the perfidy and vindictiveness 
of partisan malevolence, secretly operating through the 
spirit of literature. 

The clear genius of the poet was clouded, and his spirit 
broken down by the infinite contumelies of his enemies. 
The demon of party snatched him from his studies, arrested 
his composition of " Hyperion," and banished him to the 
continent; there he lingered awhile, and then departed to a 
happier world, in the flower of his youth, and vigour of his 
hopes. The savage decree of his foes was fulfilled — the 
sacrifice was performed, but woe be to those who personated 
the high priests of the fiendish rites ! . Let the poet be 
judged by himself. What can be more distinct, beautiful, 
and true, than this address to the nightingale : — 

•' Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird ! 

No hungry generations tread thee down ; 

The voice I lieard this passing night, was heard 

In ancient days, by emperor and clown ; 

Perhaps the self same song that found a path 

Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home. 

She stood in tears amid the alien corn.'' 

Farther on we find a most original and beautiful metaphor, 
a rare thing ; beauty sleeping is 

•' As though a rose would shut, and be a bud again." 

The dethronement of Saturn by Jupiter, forms the subject 
of Hyperion. How awfully distinct are the images of the 
poet, as he guides the imagination to the refuge of the 
fallen acod : — 



148 ' SKETCHES IN PROSE. 

" Deep in the shady sadness of the vale, 

Far snnken from the healthy breath of morn. 

Far from the fiery noon and eve's lone star, 

Sat grey haired Saturn, quiet as a stone, 

Still as the silence round about his lair ; 

Forest on forest hung about his head, 

Like cloud on cloud. No stir of air was there, 

Not so much life as on a summer's day 

Robs not one light seed from the feather'd grass, 

But where the dead leaf fell, there did it rest." * * * 

***** Upon the sodden ground 

His old right hand lay nerveless, listless, dead, 

Unsceptered, and his realmless eyes were closed ; 

While his bowed head seemed listening to the earth. 

His ancient mother, for some comfort yet." 

He describes Saturn's empress, and then proceeds : — 

" How beautiful if sorrow had not made 

Sorrow more beautiful than beauty's self! 

There was a listening fear in his regard. 

As if calamity had but begun ; 

As if the banward clouds of evil days 

Had spent their malice, and the sullen roar 

Was with its stored thunder labouring up." 

Yet the poet who was equal to continued and sustained 
passages like these, fell a victim to the cold-blooded atrocity 
of a cringing office-holder, to the malignity and envy of 
Croker, Secretary of the Admiralty. So long as literature 
and the fine arts are made the vehicles of political and 
religious intolerance and calumny — so long as genius is 
sacrificed on the altar of Belial and Mammon — so long as 
personal animosity guides the pen of the public reviewer, 
the difficulties to be surmounted, the trials to be borne, and 
the dangers to be resisted in the pathway of poetry, will 



SCETCHES IN PROSE. 149 

deter most men of genius and sensibility from the conflict. 
They will be more disposed to leave the gory arena to the 
Quarterly gladiators alone, and seek, in the bosom of retire- 
ment, that quiet happiness which seldom visited the heart of 
the unhappy Keats. 

Literary biography furnishes no particular account of 
Herbert Knowles ; all we know of him is, that he was a 
contemplative young man, who resided in the vicinity, and 
Avas accustomed to frequent the churchyard of Richmond. 
At what period he was born, how he lived, or when he died 
we know not. Like Grant, the author of the most celebrated 
Oxford prize poem ever produced, he seems to have thrown 
all his energies into one masterly effort, achieved the victory, 
and disappeared forever. His genius does not indeed glow 
with the fervour of a Milton, but the pathos and power of 
his thoughts and imagery are touching, because they are 
true. The " Churchyard" is an energetic epitome of the 
vanity of human hopes and wishes. To what should a 
tabernacle be built in that solemn realm of death? To 
ambition ? oh, no ! he is 

" To the meanest of reptiles a peer and a prey." 

To beauty ? no I To pride ? wherefore ? To him nothing is 
or can be allowed, but 

" The long windingsheet and the fringe of the shroud.'' 
To riches f alas, nothing remains to them but 

" The tinsel that shone on the dark coffin-lid." 

To love ? in that awful hour of silence, 

" Friends, brothers, and sisters, are laid side by side. 
Yet none hare saluted and none have repliod." 



1.50 .SKETCHES IN PROSE. 

Thus proving everything vain and unsatisfactory, he 
resolves to build the three tabernacles to Hope, Faith, and 
the Lamb of the Sacrifice. 

The conception of this poem is admirable, and its execu- 
tion is remarkable for simplicity of style, and for strength 
and beauty of expression. It remains a durable monument 
to the memory of a name which, after all, is the glorious 
ultimatum of incessant aspirations, struggles, and trials. 
On a rational review of the history of literature, we become 
more and more persuaded that he who "devotes the energies 
of his mind, and the treasures of his knowledge, to the 
acquirement merely of fame, is misguided and unwise. 
While a satisfactory proportion of just applause follows the 
steady and pleasurable exercise of the cultivated intellect, 
life glides on peacefully, and literature largely contributes 
to its enjoyment ; but the restlessness of ambition, the quench- 
less thirst of vanity, the one unvarying desire to acquire 
notoriety at any expense, inevitably subject the wretched 
devotee to innumerable disappointments and vexations. 
Amid the comforts of a well spent life, it is pleasant to 
anticipate the applause of posterity ; but during the tumult 
of persecution, and in the dust of the garret, the honours 
that may be awarded to our ashes, are empty as " air, 
thin air." 



9 
JOHN HOWARD PAYNE. 



Under auspicious circumstances, it is a pleasant thing 

To make a tour and take a whirl, 
To learn bon ton and see the worl' — 

for our admiration of novel beauties counteracts the num- 
berless vexations to which we are exposed, and, while con- 
templating the glories of the past, we almost forget the suf- 
ferings of the present. The petty, though provoking 
annoyances of gendarmie and sub-perfectures too often 
awaken us from our dreams of other times, but the intensity 
of delight soon effaces these evils from the mind. It is 
exhilarating to visit strange places ; imaginary pictures are 
displayed before living realities, and we turn and turn from 
the one to the other, pleased alike with the vraisemblance 
and the contrast. The longing curiosity, which has haunted 
our dreams for years, is gratified in its full extent ; and, 
though this gratification is often associated with melancholy 
feelings, yet the enthusiastic consciousness that we tread 
upon holy ground — ground sanctified by the blood of pa- 
triots and martyrs — fills the heart with the glory of departed 
ages, and guides us to a proud participation in the honours 
of the dead. The venerable abodes of those who have 
passed away to the land of dreams, vividly suggest remem- 



]52 .lOHiN HOWARD PAYNE. 

brances of their lives and deeds ; and every ruin inspires 
our hearts with high resolves to follow the pathway of the 
wise and good. There is a mentor in every trace of a good 
man's footsteps; there is a high reward for all who re- 
verence the memory and imitate the example which he 
leaves behind. The ancient chamber, where the just man 
dwelt, is more eloquent in its ruin than the most seraphic 
sublimity that ever fell from the lips of Bordaloue. The 
thoughts of our minds insensibly blend with the hopes and 
fears, the troubles and the trials of other beings in other 
times ; and, as we tread the same ground which once they 
trod, it behoves us to feel the influence of their example, 
and direct our course toward the same mansion of rest 
which has been allotted to them. Not less should we be 
deterred from evil deeds, and the indulgence of evil pas- 
sions, by beholding the dilapidated abodes of those who 
were a curse to their species, and a dishonour to the name 
of man. The sensitive heart will feel alike the influence of 
the penates and the demons. Though the persons have 
disappeared, yet their spectres are present still ; and we can 
almost hear the prayer of the holy and the anathema of 
the unjust man ring through the antique dwellings where 
we tread with reverential awe or thrilling abhorrence. 

The first peculiar object which attracts the stranger's at 
tention in Paris is the immense height of the houses ; the 
next is the suspension of the lamps, at the altitude of nearly 
forty feet, across the streets ; and the third is the disgusting 
filth that everywhere prevails. The shadows of the night 
fell darkly around us ere we reached the London Hotel; 
but the streaming lights of the lamps displayed the perils of 
our path, and our olfactory nerves suffered a thousand mar- 



JOHN HOWARD PAYNE. 153 

tyrdoiiis ere we crossed the boulevard des Italiem, and en- 
tered the echohig court of our sojourning place. Hence 
we were ushered up a long flight of stairs, and through 
countless corridors, which guided us at last, to the exalted 
apartments apportioned to our occupancy. Perceiving, on 
our entrance, that the floors were tiled, without even an 
apology for a carpet, we felt the April weather too sensi- 
tively without fire ; but, when this was called for, the 
French chambermaid stared as if we had asked a miracle, 
until the request was repeated, when she left the room mut- 
tering something about fogs, roshif, and Monsieur Anglais. 
The word comfort is outlawed among the French ; it be- 
longs not to their vocabulary ; it appertains not to their 
speech ; it is an alien to their hearts ! — So that their tiles 
are finely polished, and their beds well adorned, and their 
rooms hung round with mirrors, it matters not if the lattices 
are half closed in a chilly day, or if an ague should follow 
the discomfort of a night's unrest. We were sufliciently 
acquainted with the vexations of travelling, however, to 
avoid the latter evil ; and we awoke, in the morning, re- 
lieved from the fatigues of our journey, and prepared to 
enjoy the novelty of our new situation. 

Coflee is a sine qua non among the French ; and they 
may well boast of its excellence, for he who has partaken 
this delicious beverage in Paris, would scarcely endure the 
mockery among any other people. To drink French cofl!ee 
from Severes porcelain is indeed a luxury. 

Our breakfast had just concluded, when John Howard 
Payne, our distinguished countryman called upon me. He 
had received my introductory letters on the preceding 

20 



154 JOHN HOWARD i'aym;. 

evening ; and the readiness with which he fulfilled his du- 
ties as a gentleman, dissipated, at once, all the idle false- 
hoods by which his enemies in London had laboured to 
blast his character. Modest, yet self-possessed ; instructive 
in conversation, yet scorning all display ; Mr. Payne 
delights the stranger as much by the qualities of his heart 
as the vigour of his mind. We recognise the writer, and 
admire his powers, but it is reserved for the man to complete 
the satisfaction we enjoy. 

Yet no one has been more frequently and bitterly assailed 
by Grub-street lampooners and merciless creditors. His 
name has been uttered as a word of scorn by the lowest 
and the vilest of our species. His moral and literary cha- 
racter has sufiered alike froni the shafts of ridicule, the un- 
feeling attacks of the envious, and the cold treachery of 
pretended friends. There are always certain low-born 
drivellers in every community, who burrow for falsehoods — 
who banquet on lies — to whom the bread of life is the de- 
struction of genius. These insolent pests always scatter 
abuse on the fairest characters, and make up in vituperation 
Avhat they lack in truth. But Mr. Payne is above the in- 
fluence of their malevolent injustice; they can inflict no 
injury on a man who could be amenable to their attacks only 
by adopting their society. 

During my residence in the French capital, and in Ver- 
sailles, I had very frequent occasions to observ^e the per- 
sonal and literary character of Mr. Payne, and I cannot do 
him the injustice to withhold ray testimony to his generous 
traits of character, and his intellectual ability. It is his 
misfortune that the former sometimes degenerate into in- 



JOIl.N HOWARD PAY.NK. 155 

considerate profusion, and that the latter is often misapplied 
to purposes unprofitable and unbefitting his genius. There 
are hearts, in this cold world of ours, so callous and obdu- 
rate^ — so utterly insensible to the outbreathings of an in- 
spired nature — as to confound the impulsive errors of a 
noble mind with the deliberate crimes of an unprincipled 
character. It has been the destiny of Mr. Payne to en- 
counter such hypocritical pretenders to martyr-like sanctity ; 
and, from the fury of their holy zeal, he has sufiered in the 
same degree as all must do who madly confide in the pro- 
fessions of fanatics, with whom there is nothing good be- 
neath the light of that heaven to which they expect to 
attain. .Things are very unequally and strangely bestowed 
in this world. It is almost unaccountable why generosity 
should be paralyzed through want of means ; or why the 
possession of the power of benificence should exclude the 
inclination. The income of Mr. Payne (which a little 
more worldly wisdom might greatly augment) is utterly 
insufiicient to fulfil his benevolent purposes ; and, therefore, 
he is not unfrequently subjected to that species of trouble 
which compelled Sir Richard Steele to write a pamphlet at 
a single sitting, and which domesticated Dr. Johnson in 
uninterrupted privacy, for no short time, in the dreary alley 
of St. Lambert. 

For an impartial observer it is not difiicult to trace those 
abberations which terminate in disappointment ; though the 
windings of the path are often imperceptible to the traveller, 
yet they are distinctly visible to all who are free to mark 
the objects in his way. Although Mr. Payne may be un- 
willing to believe that his departure from the Haymarket 



156 JOHN HOWARD TAYNE. 

Theatre was the proximate cause of much distress, yet all 
who feel an interest in his welfare are ready to aver it with 
deep regret. As an actor and manager, he attained a dis- 
tinction, an influence, and an income, which he iiever can 
enjoy, as a dramatist. Formed for activity, and only happy 
when full of employment, Mr. Payne soon grew fat and in- 
dolent amid his sedenteiy advocations, and deferred oppor- 
tunities of splendid success till the period had gone by. Let 
not this be understood as derogating from his merit as an 
author ; his powers are not limited to his ordinary pursuits, 
but they are restricted by those pursuits to a narrow compass, 
and lowered to the petty standard of interested opinions. 
As a mere translator and copyist, he never can acquire re- 
nown ; the faults, moral and literary, of the authors whom he 
translates, are always imputed to him, while the beauties arc 
invariably assigned to the original writer. His profits as a 
dramatist must always be insignificant, for he exercises but 
little vigilance over his productions, and his labours have 
more frequently conduced to the independent livelihood of 
others than his own. He is therefore abused for opinions 
which he did not utter, and persecuted for errors which he 
did not commit. He will not return to his own country, for 
he fears that every body has forgotten him ; he will not re- 
sume his station on the boards, for he is too corpulent for 
Hamlet ; and he will not adopt original dramatic composi- 
tion, for it is too laborious. Thus he shuts himself out 
from the favours of his countrymen and the applause of the 
public ; thus he fritters away his gifts in an unprofitable 
cause, and despises that worldly wisdom which might have 
conducted him to opulence. 



JOHN HOWARD PAYNE. ]57 

But he errs more in respect to his own welfare than to- 
wards his friends or the world ; and therefore, while all who 
regard him cannot but blame his improvidence, and lament 
his indolent misapplication of no ordinary powers, they are 
compelled to admire his generosity, his magnanimity, his 
truth and honour — and to reverence the man, whose suf- 
ferings, however produced, are restricted to himself — but 
whose honours, worthily acquired, are reflected on the 
countries of his birth and adoption. 



CONTENTS. 



Dedication 3 

The Argument ---_.... 5 

Abaddon, the Spirit of Destruction 7 

The Heart's Apocalypse 51 

Despondency 55 

Grave Watching ...._... 59 

Pere La Chaise 62 

An Evening Song of Peidmont - - . - . 66 

The Imperial Sacrifice 68 

The Last Hour of the Polonese 71 

The Capture of Andre ...... .76 

Memory's Revealings ---.... 79 

The Eudaemonist 82 

Sunset at Sea 86 

Hope 91 

Stanzas, written in the Park of Versailles ... 93 

The Disinterred Mastadon 97 

Sonnet . . . iQl 

The Star of Memory - - . . . . . iq2 

Sonnet 105 

The Dawn of the Decade 106 

Religion Unrevealed HI 

The Father's Legacy ----... hq 

The Last Song to Clara ---... 120 

To My Husband - 126 

Birthday Meditations 130 

Sketches in Prose — Young Poets of Britain ... 135 

John Howard Payne 151 



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